#like with the mark of cain he would have known he was wrong so feeling guilty abt that would be like. acceptable.

[sonotpattismith]

let him make a woman out of me

pairing: martial arts!sukuna x preacher's daughter!reader word count: 13.5k content: angst, religious themes, religious trauma, low-key sacrilegious at points, implied sexual harassment/abuse, mentions of miscarriage, smut, 18+ a/n: this was just supposed to be a self-defense trainer sukuna fic, but I was listening to Ethel Cain and my religious trauma jumped out idk what happened SORRY- also thank you to @yoyoheart for the inspo :')

You had never been sure who’s wrath you feared more: your father’s, God’s, or the world that both of the aforementioned possibilities sheltered you from. Perhaps they were all one in the same, as your father lived to enforce his own version of God’s will, and the world of the small community surrounding you bent to their every whim. 

Of course, you had never been so naive as to believe there wasn’t a whole other world beyond the confines of your father’s commandments and God’s watchful eye, even though you had never seen it— a faith you had learned from the very Bible that shackled your mind— believing without seeing, the presence of the other world lingered all around without your needing to touch it to acknowledge the fact. 

None of these things though could have prepared you for the trials and temptations ahead of you; not your father’s scorn, not God’s promises, and certainly not the world that had kept you barred for so long— because you never knew this was what all these things were hiding from you.

Nothing could have prepared you for Sukuna. 

Here you were though, staring up at the martial arts gym in the middle of a city you had never known, with hopes that it would help bring you that much closer to feeling confident in the world you were always a fingertips brush away from. Second doubts were creeping into your muddled mind though, because the man emerging from the back of the gym at the sound of the front door jingling with your arrival was monstrous, unlike anything you’d ever seen before, but everything you imagined Lucifer’s deceptive beauty to be. 

He was tall, ducking his head ever-so-slightly through the archway as he took a long swig from his water jug. Even the way his long finger’s wrapped around the plastic appeared perilous, the flimsy material bending under what looked like it was supposed to be a casual grip. Tugging the wire from one of his headphones down, he raised a brow at your timid stance while leaning his hands on the front counter. 

“You my six o’clock self-defence beginner?” His question rang in your ears, making your heart pound violently against your chest. 

This was supposed to be who would be training you? He looked like the very people you were hoping to learn how to defend yourself against, what with the menacing marks that littered his otherwise captivating face. He reminded you of what the scripture had said about how even Lucifer masqueraded as an angel of light. 

“Oh, um…” Your gaze flickered, taking note of the way the sleeves of his compression shirt strained pitifully against the swell of his biceps. This man could kill you with a flick of his wrist should you make a wrong move. Twisting your fingers into the hem of your hoodie, you mustered the courage to respond to him as his brows rose in an exasperated go on expression. “You’re the… martial arts trainer?”

“There a problem with that?” The subtle edge in his tone had your breath hitching, every doubt that you were sure you had buried when you left your hometown flooding back to you. 

“No! I just…” Your anxious voice trailed, and the silence in the modestly sized gym had a premature sweat breaking out onto your neck— you were alone with this man. “Is there maybe a um… female trainer?”

His face remained intimidatingly neutral for a few seconds before the slightest of amused smirks broke the sudden tension. Pushing off the counter, he trailed around to the front, a motion that had you inching back in a manner you could only hope was subtle. Instead of stopping in front of you though, he moved past you and toward the front door. You watched with furrowed brows as he pushed it ajar before shoving the door stopper between it and the frame. 

“Look princess— this is my gym.” He explained with a resigned sigh. 

For a moment, Sukuna had contemplated rolling his eyes at your request. It wasn’t that he was offended— no, he was far too accustomed to the intimidated stares and shuffles away from his vicinity. Still, irritation was a state of second nature to him, built up over years of needing to put up with the aggravatingly shallow individuals that had plagued his life since he was a teenager and first sprouted both in size and fear factor. 

Taking a better look at you though, he had to remind himself of how he came off most times. Your comparably small frame was swallowed up by his shadow, and by the way your wide, dewy eyes darted about the gym, it told him that perhaps he needed to tone it down a notch. After all, you were a kind-looking girl all by herself in a gym with a six foot something bodybuilder who couldn’t understand it when people told him he had a perpetually murderous look in his eyes. 

Standing up once the door was successfully propped open, he made his way back over to you as you tried to conceal your shell-shocked expression. Meanwhile, the assessing glint in his ruby eyes as he dragged his gaze up and down your tense figure did nothing to ease your nerves. 

“So, no, I’m the only trainer here.” He finally continued before meeting your eyes once again. “What are you here for?”

“Um… what am I here for?”

“Why are you taking these lessons?”

 You blinked apprehensively up at him as memories of your life leading you all the way here to this stranger’s gaze flooded your mind. Gulping down the lump in your throat, you tried to straighten your posture in an attempt to appear more confident than you actually felt. 

“I want to protect myself.”

He nodded firmly at your answer, leaning his elbow against the counter. 

“And do you think anyone fucks with me?” He fought back an amused smirk watching you flinch back at his crass words. It made him wonder what the fuck you were doing here, as it was becoming abundantly clear that you were likely heavily sheltered. In his experience, girls like you always had some helicopter parents doing all the protecting for them, even at their grown ages. Your lips twitched nervously as your eyes continued to flutter up at him. “Hm?”

“No— no, I don’t think anyone… bothers you.”

“And why not?” At this point, you were almost sure he just enjoyed seeing you sweat as he continued to press with a mocking tilt of his head. Sensing your apprehension, he nodded encouragingly. “Go on, I’m a big boy— I can take it.”

“Well, you’re— y’know, tall and… big.” You weren’t sure what other term to use without flat out calling him scary, but he seemed to have understood you anyway— much to your relief. 

“So, you’re telling me you’d rather have some pipsqueak trying to teach you how to kick someone’s ass?” 

“Oh… well I guess that—”

“Oh—” The pink haired man mocked before pushing off the counter to head toward the center of the mat that was covering the majority of the gym. “Get your ass over here, we’re already running behind.”

Despite the nerves still taking hold of every inch of you, you quickly sprang into action at his command. Setting your bag down by the counter, you gave one last hesitant glance his way before tugging down the zipper of your jacket. Shrugging it off your shoulders, you were left in your long-sleeve top that, despite covering nearly every inch of you, made you feel unnecessarily exposed in his presence. You tugged at it in hopes it would stretch into a less form-fitting material as you walked to stand before him. 

“Take that off.” 

“W-What?” You stammered out, crossing your arms over your chest defensively. He jutted his chin toward you. 

“Your necklace— if it gets caught on something while training it’ll fuck up your neck. Don’t wear jewelry when you come here.”

Your fingers slowly creeped up to curl around the cross that dangled from the dainty chain around your neck. It was the one your father had gifted you after your first Communion so many years ago, and it hadn’t left your body since. With a small nod, you reached up to unhook the chain. Your fingers trembled though, slipping and sliding the hook out of your grasp as your face began to heat in embarrassment. 

“Sorry.” You attempted a nonchalant smile, but it appeared more like a grimace as you continued to struggle with the clasp. 

Sukuna watched you silently, the way your eyes wouldn’t meet his, the guilt that swam behind them as you fought to maintain your composure long enough to do what he’d asked of you. 

He had been teaching self-defence lessons for a few years now— not as long as he’d been involved in martial arts, but long enough to recognize certain cues and quirks in the people that passed through his gym. It had begun out of irritation, all the kids being brought into a martial arts class by their parents because they were getting bullied, all the women fearing the rising crime rates in this city— weak people bothered him, they pissed him off like nothing else. 

When deciding to begin teaching individual lessons geared specifically toward self-defense, Sukuna tried to tell himself that it was because he wanted at least one less wimp walking out into the world each time he finished a class— that, and the extra income certainly didn’t hurt. It was beginning, though, to teach him harsh truths about himself and about the world he had convinced himself he hated for so long. 

It was never weak people that bothered him. No, instead he was quickly coming to the startling realization that he saw himself in each frail recruit. Of course, it was never the version of himself that he had now grown into, but the young boy who had been alienated by the world under the false pretenses of love and righteousness. Sukuna had to be reminded each day that where weak people were— the self proclaimed righteous were never far behind, and nothing infuriated him more.

In the midst of your mortified fumbling, you hadn’t noticed that he’d stepped closer to you, reaching behind you to push your hands away and nimbly unhook it himself. You peered up at him through your lashes as though too scared to meet his gaze head on as his large hand came back around to hang in front of you, dangling the cross just beside your nose. He was glowering down at you, sharp eyes seeming to assess your every breath, and, for a moment, you were sure he could see straight through you. 

“Thank you.” You mumbled sincerely, holding your palm up for him to carefully drop the necklace in the center of it. 

The towering man stepped back to allow you to place the jewelry safely into your bag before rejoining him. In the minuscule interaction, you came to the comforting resignation that he had already had the chance to use that grueling size of his to his advantage, but the only use he put to his hands thus far was to help you. 

“I’m sorry, I’m just a little nervous is all— I was being judgmental. Let’s start over.”

“No, remember that.” Sukuna insisted with a nonchalant shake of his head. He raised a splayed out hand in front of him before nodding toward it. “Punch me.” 

“Punch you?” You repeated, eyes flickering apprehensively between him and his large palm. “Aren’t you supposed to… I don’t know— put gloves on or something?”

His expression deadpanned at you, and you could practically hear that unimpressed glint in his eyes asking you— are you serious right now? The borderline exasperated look on his face actually managed to break through your nerves for the first time since you’d walked into the small gym. A horribly concealed, breathy laugh escaped you as you realized the ridiculousness of your question. It made him look away from you for a moment, fighting back a tired smile of his own that showed just how long he’d been working today. 

Quickly collecting yourself, you squared your shoulders to show him that you were ready. He nodded at you, barely adjusting his stance to prepare for whatever force your comparably small fists would deliver. His scarlet eyes observed your form as you hurled your balled up fist forward with what looked to be all the strength you could manage. You wouldn’t have the chance to see if it dealt any damage because you were quickly curling back, cradling your fist into your chest with a pained groan.

“That’s why you need to correct your form before you jump into anything else.” He explained simply, not at all phased by your pathetic attempt at a punch as he cracked his neck concerningly loud. 

“If you knew that, why didn’t you teach me that first?” You gaped in exasperation, wringing out your now throbbing knuckles. 

“Because now you’ll never forget to fix your form, huh?”

The first thing you learned about Sukuna is that, when there was an option to learn the hard way— he always took it. It didn’t matter that he was lightyears taller than you, or that the only thing you’d ever hit in your life was your pillow, or that you were a girl. In that hour that you were his student— he was going to make sure you learned. 

Despite the dull ache that remained in your hand the remaining hour as he demonstrated the proper posture to take, even down to how you should be breathing, it was exhilarating to have been taken seriously for once. His corrections, though gruff and direct, were never the condescending tone you had grown so accustomed to among the men who you grew up alongside in the church. 

They, like your father, had so many stories to tell you of the heathens that were often drawn to the city with allures of its greed and idolatry. These caricatures they’d conjure up would leave you shaken at night as you prayed to the Lord for any alternative— stuck between the fear of what may be awaiting you should you leave the safe confines of your hometown, and the isolating horror of what it may mean for you if you stayed. 

It began to make you wonder though as you placed your water bottle back into your bag and shrugged your hoodie back on. You questioned the tales you had been fed your entire life— because none of them had ever mentioned that the people in the city, who had a knack for giving into the sins of the flesh and denying the name of the Lord, would also be the first to speak to you instead of at you. Perhaps it was just Sukuna though— you wouldn’t know.

“I have you down for the same time next week.” He instructed firmly while moving to shelf the weights he’d been having you use to practice your form. “Better be practicing too— I can tell if you’re bullshitting me.” 

It had only been a little over an hour, but you had somehow felt as though you’d already grown accustomed to his intense way of speaking. Then again, there was also the possibility that it was sliding off your shoulders because he was treating you with the kind of basic human decency you hadn’t even known was possible for so long. Additionally, you took comfort in the fact that you knew what he was thinking— what with him being so terribly honest even about what pissed him off. You didn’t have to guess what atrocities might be hiding behind sickly sweet, feigned smiles and traitorously kind words.

So, you only smiled and nodded affirmatively at him as you bid him a goodnight. From behind you, he only grunted in response, casting one last look at you from over his shoulder as you left the gym, still practically bouncing with adrenaline. That exercise-induced dopamine hit only lasted so long though, because you were soon reminded of how far you’d parked your car as you stared out into the now pitch-black night surrounding you. 

Your fingers fiddled with the straps of your bag as you lifted yourself onto your tiptoes to survey all the dimly-lit alleys between yourself and your vehicle. All your skepticism about the fear-tactics you had been fed your whole life flew out the window in favor of recalling all the stories about what happened to girls like you out in these big cities. Gulping down the anxious lump in your throat, you bounced on your heels apprehensively. 

Slowly sliding back, you found yourself pulling open the door to the gym once again, where Sukuna was cleaning the space up for the night. He looked entirely absorbed in the task at hand, headphone tucked snuggly into his ears and face scrunched initimidatingly firm. It made you hesitate, but you weren’t able to concern yourself any longer about if you were being a terribly annoying inconvenience to him, because he caught your hovering form in his peripheral. 

“You forget something?” He questioned with a calculated raise of his brow. 

Chewing on your cheek, you remembered the fear that look struck in you the moment you’d seen it first— the subtle temper that seemed to be permanently lurking behind it and how his stature did nothing to comfort his observers. 

“No, um…” You pursed your lips, your blunt fingernails rapping against the door as he watched you expectantly. At the ridiculousness of your own request, you found yourself flushing.

“Spit it out.” 

 “Do you think you could walk with me?” You finally squeaked out at the sound of his impatient order. He blinked incredulously at you a few times, so you clarified. “To my car? I-I just parked kind of far and…”

Your words trailed in embarrassment as he watched the way you glanced behind you uneasily, but he knew. How could he not? He’d been doing this for far too long, after all.  

Though the man had his own, begrudgingly personal reasons for being in the line of work he was in, it always ended right when that hour was up. Knowing that he had already done all that he would have been able to in the time allotted, there was never any pull for him to try harder or dig deeper. Of course, it could also have been attributed to the fact that he’d never been one to care much for connection— not when what he had learned so early on about connection severed so many critical parts of him at such a young age. 

Still, it was the very reason his typically automatic refusal faltered. The look in your eyes was humble, flickering between him and the darkness that lay behind you. Your gaze held a vulnerability not unlike the kind he so vehemently detested— the one that had once glimmered in his own eyes. 

With a soft click of his tongue, he tugged his headphones out and shoved them into his pockets. Your lashes fluttered as his long legs began striding toward the door, and you stepped aside for him to push through it. Already a few yards ahead of you, Sukuna paused and swiveled his head around to see that you were still at the door.

“You coming, brat? Or do you need to be carried too?” Despite his taunting words, his tone didn’t hold the malice he intended it to, and you knew it too. With a soft, wobbly smile of appreciation, you quickly fell into step beside him, nodding in the direction of your car. 

It was silent as you two walked beside one another, the only noises permeating the peace being the thuds of your feet against the concrete and the jingling of his keys deep in his pockets where he had shoved his hands. Sukuna’s crimson eyes regarded you discreetly from his peripheral, noting the way you walked as though the ground might give out on you at any second. It was becoming clearer to him by the second that you were new to being out in the world on your own— at least that’s what your shifting eyes and tense shoulders told him as the rowdy conversation of a group of men grew closer with each step of your trek. 

Even through your attempted subtlety, he picked up with a sharp precision the way you inched ever-so-slightly closer to him at the sudden intrusion. Casting his eyes to the side, his fist clenched twice in contemplation before he pulled it from his pocket and rested a guiding hand on the nape of your neck as you two passed the group in what he hoped would be a message to chill the fuck out.

The motion stung at your nervous system for a moment before you felt his fingers tighten as the two of you brushed against the men on your route. The protectiveness that came like a second nature to him spread a subtle warmth through your chest, one you were sure to stomp out before you let it fester anymore. Now a safe distance from what sounded to be a drunken group, his grip on your neck eased up. Clicking his jaw, he felt a sense of relief for a fear that wasn’t his to shoulder as he wondered what would have happened had you not come back for him.

The worn down car beeped a few feet away from you as you clicked at the key, and Sukuna’s hand slowly fell from your neck. 

“Thank you.” Your tone was overly sincere for an action as miniscule as walking you to your car, but it only added to the growing, twisting sensation in his gut that said something was off about the look in your eyes. Despite this, you smiled up at him, far more assured than the tense one you had given him when you still feared him. 

“Yeah, whatever,” He muttered, shoving his hands back into his pockets as you tugged open your door and settled in. Finally taking the chance to glance over you again, the man leaned his hand against the dingy vehicle. “Don’t park so fucking far next time. There’s a lot behind the gym.”

In the growling irritation that laced his tone, you were still able to detect that he was trying to help you— even if he wanted it to seem like you were deeply inconveniencing him. Still, you didn’t want to take advantage of his kindness, so you nodded ardently. 

“Behind the gym, got it.” 

His lips twitched up softly at your sincerely affirmative tone, but he made sure to turn his face away before you could see it. 

“Not everyone’s out to get you.” Sukuna grumbled as you clicked your seatbelt on. Perhaps he was jumping the gun with his assumptions, but he had a sneaking suspicion about the way you view the world around you. Your teeth sunk into your bottom lip at his words. “And get a can of mace, will ya? Not always gonna be around to play knight for you.”

He didn’t give you the chance to respond, closing the door firmly with his monstrous hand. Waiting until he heard the soft click of your door locking, you watched as his broad frame stalked away from your car. 

God won’t allow you to be tempted beyond what you could bear.

It was meant to provide you solace as you recalled the scripture, however it only fed your doubt the entire drive to your apartment, thoughts of how his warmth felt against your skin haunting your once steadfast beliefs. 

It was more than his sinful beauty that plagued you though— it was the wisdom he seemed to keep about the very things that terrified you. Like a gatekeeper into the depths of your naivety, Sukuna seemed so sure of his every move and belief, and, in turn, he seemed to hold that same confidence in you. It was so foreign to you to receive that confidence without the need to prove yourself first— always guiltily fragile before proven innocently competent. 

You busied yourself as best you could in the days that followed, trying to build your new apartment from the ground up and make it into some semblance of a home. It was with a haste that you came though, only a duffel bag on your shoulder and certainly no furniture to liven up the space. With the limited budget you were working with, you spent a day searching though thrift stores and garage sales for decent enough pieces that would suffice for your living space. 

With each bill you pulled from the modest wad of cash you kept hidden within a sock at the corner of your bathroom cabinet, the looming reality of being truly on your own was settling in, and you wondered who the hell would hire you with only babysitting experience. It was just another reason to curse your upbringing, never having prepared you for the real world, because in their version of it, teaching you to bring up a child was all the preparation you needed. 

You shook your head in an attempt to veer yourself away from where your thoughts would eventually take you. In your journey of self discovery, you were quickly learning that pitying yourself wouldn’t save you from the uphill battle of moving forward. 

A determined huff escaped you as you finally located the parking lot Sukuna had told you about the week prior. Though you no longer feared him in the way you had upon first meeting, it was the energy he emanated that had you needing to hype yourself up to enter the gym for your second lesson that evening. 

He was doing warm ups when the bell on the door chimed alerting your arrival, his long legs spread into a near completely horizontal line on each side of him as he leaned to the right to grasp onto his foot. His movements were almost supernaturally fluid, and it was jarring to see such precise agility coming from a man with such an imposing figure. The hem of his black, compression shirt had ridden up in the midst of his stretch, revealing the wickedly small sliver of his sculpted back. 

There was the smallest of parts between your lips as you found yourself leaning forward with each centimeter the fabric continued to crawl up. The abrupt lifting of his head snapped you from your pathetic gawking though, his scarlet eyes finding yours instantaneously. 

“What’s wrong with you?” He questioned brashly, taking note of the subtle flush in your cheeks. He twisted his torso to crack his back before standing easily from his place on the mat to gather a few gloves and weights for the lesson. 

“Oh— nothing.” You shook from your thoughts long enough to smile at him, to which he only responded with a quirk of his brow and an unconvinced grunt. 

“You practice like I told you to?” 

You nodded at him, dropping your bag carefully onto the side of the counter before moving to unzip your jacket. This time around, you had half a mind to pick a less form-fitting t-shirt lest you be forced to anxiously readjust yourself between every move. 

“I tried. I don’t really have any weights though, so…” 

That subtle vulnerability, the unnecessary embarrassment in all your explanations was driving him insane. It made him want to shake you, to scream at you to fuck the world and stop being so damn scared of everything. It’s not what he was here for though, so he pushed the timid twitching at the corners of your lips to the back of his mind and nodded for you to stand before him and demonstrate the form he had spent so long perfecting with you the week prior. 

You felt like shifting your weight under his scrutinizing gaze as it dragged from your firmly planted feet up your parted legs and to the controlled stiffness in your spine. Sukuna circled around you, akin to a predator stalking its prey— at least a helpless lamb in the jawls of a wolf was exactly how you felt at the moment. 

He hummed, placing one hand on your shoulder and the other at the center of your back to straighten your posture. Nodding to himself at the correction, he almost allowed his hands to fall when he caught sight of the deep bruise forming on your forearm. 

“The fuck happened to you?” The man questioned with a laser-like focus, lifting your injured arm to emphasize what he was inquiring about. 

When your eyes fell upon his target, that infuriatingly familiar blush coated your cheeks once again. Pulling your arm from his grasp, you traced a gentle palm over the nasty mark. 

“I was… trying to put together a coffee table.” You murmured bashfully, not lifting your gaze for fear of his reaction. 

It was silent for a moment. 

“A coffee table?” Sukuna repeated as though perhaps he’d just heard you wrong, a subtle exasperation in his tone. You only nodded. “And what, did it grow fucking arms and fight back?” 

At this, you giggled hesitantly, but his seriousness only made your laughter bubble up uncontrollably. Had he not been so perturbed at your claim, perhaps he would have found himself fighting back a smile at the sound. Quickly adjusting to fix your posture once again, you shook your head in an attempt to fight off your tickled smile. 

“No, no, I just—” You shrugged sheepishly as he stared impatiently down at you. “I’ve never had the chance to do stuff like that before, so I don’t really know how to use all the tools.”

“Right,” He responded doubtfully, still eyeing the blackening mark just above your wrist for a moment longer before he released it. “You at least get the shit standing?” 

“Well… no, but my landlord offered to come over after he got off work to help me with it.” 

This made Sukuna pause mid shoulder stretch, a volant sense of unease seeping into his chest. Slowly lowering his arms back down to his side, his cautionary gaze struck you sharply. 

“Your landlord?” He began lowly, making you nod hesitantly. “Offered to come to your house to help you build a table— at night?”

You gulped at his warning tone, the growing expression of exasperation on his face gave you pause. The disbelief in those crimson eyes suddenly made you feel sickly insecure about the decision that you were so confident would fix your little dilemma. Picking at your nails, you cast your eyes to your feet where they still sat planted firmly in the mat below you. 

“I mean, yeah. I don’t really know anyone—”

“So you were gonna let a stranger into your place by yourself?”

“You were the one that told me that not everyone was out to get me.” Your feeble attempt at a defense only made him scoff disbelievingly under his breath, hands on his hips as he looked to the side in frustration. 

“Yeah, but—” He clicked his tongue with a shake of his head, and it was clear that he was trying to reign in his temper. “I’ll teach you how to put the damn table together. Don’t let that asshole into your place, so help me god.”

You gaped at him as he moved around you to shift around the weights that he’d set out for today’s lesson with no real rhyme or reason. Sukuna only knew that if he didn’t do something to distract himself from the possibilities of what kind of scumbag you were about to let into your space, he would have barrelled out the door to find the asshole himself. 

“But—”

“But what?” His abruptly challenging tone made you flush. It wasn’t out of fear though, it was the finality in his tone that was stirring that familiar warmth in the pits of your stomach that only seemed to make its star appearances when he was nearby. 

It wasn’t his intention to come off so harshly— though it never was, that sharp tongue was simply ingrained into his bloodstream— but there was a fierce protectiveness that stirred in him that needed to guard that infuriating innocence of yours the way no one bothered to protect his. Taking note of your flushed cheeks, he released a calculatedly controlled sigh before softening his tone as best as he knew how to. 

“Quit overthinking it. I’ll show you how to do it so you don’t gotta be asking assholes to help you for stupid shit.” He grumbled, finally coming back around to stand in front of you as he nodded for you to get back into form. 

It took you a few moments, too busy staring up at him with a type of gratitude he wasn’t used to being on the receiving end of. To be fair though, he was holding out something that you too had yet to grasp at, and it was the chance of independence Sukuna was forcing into your unsuspecting hands. Your eyes shone even through the downright ugly lighting of his gym, flaring your presence throughout the space in a way the very walls were unworthy of. 

He could barely look at you as the two of you exchanged numbers after your lesson that evening, feeling for the first time in so long defenseless against what your perfectly intact soul would do to him should he continue meddling with it for too long. That fear didn’t stop him from knocking— perhaps a bit too firmly— on your door just a few days later, because if anyone was going to be blinded by whatever fucking sunshine you miraculously still kept in your pocket while living in a city like this— it sure as hell wasn’t going to be your creep of a landlord. 

“You live in a fucking shoe box.” Sukuna commented gruffly as he ducked in through your front door. 

This made you glance around the modest apartment, but your estimation couldn’t possibly be correct now that his imposing figure was taking up so much space. There was a subtle sense of your heart racing in your through at the sight of him, hair rustled and damp as though freshly showered, in his joggers and the t-shirt you had been praying would be loose enough to not showcase each rippling muscle in his abdomen. It seemed your prayers had fallen on deaf ears though— much like they seemed to have been your whole life. 

Sukuna was big, and devilishly handsome, and generous— and he was a man in your apartment unchaperoned, and you couldn’t tell if the notion scared you or excited you. It made you wonder if whatever threat Sukuna was so sure your landlord would pose to you would have been safer than the temptation this man wafted toward you with each confident step into your space. You felt small beside him, even more so here than you ever did in that gym. 

“I moved in a little bit of a hurry.” You explained with a bashful huff, finally finding the courage to shut the front door. 

Quickly falling into step behind him, you followed as he stalked toward the heap of wood on the floor of your living room. 

“Shitty roommate?” He guessed absentmindedly while squatting down to inspect the disheveled instruction manual on the floor, setting down the toolbox he’d brought with him.

“Uhhh, yeah, I guess you could say that.” You offered a forced smile as you allowed yourself to fall back onto the couch behind him. 

The pink-haired man abruptly lifted his head at the sound of the second-hand furniture creaking softly under your weight. His brows were raised into his hairline as he shook his head expectantly at you.

“Uh-uh, you better get your ass over here, Princess. I told you I’d show you how to do it, and I’m fucking showing you.” 

His sharp command had you springing into action, hopping off the couch to kneel down beside him. From so close, the scent of the musky body wash that still clung to every inch of him. Hiding your sheepishly tickled smile, you nodded affirmatively at him. He regarded your eager posture with a sidelong glance, the anticipation you held for learning how to put together a damn coffee table softening his brash expression ever so slightly. 

“What— your old man never teach you how to use a damn screwdriver?” His grumbled question, though accusatory, held more curiosity than he was willing to admit that he held for you. 

“He always said that was… man’s work.” The soft laugh you attempted didn’t conceal the regret laced in your tone, especially not from Sukuna’s keen senses. 

Your explanation had a scowl forming abruptly on his already intimidating face. That grossly outdated sentiment sounded so familiar to him, and he found himself pressing to confirm despite the way his question may reveal a part of his past he tried to bury under all his muscle and tattoos. 

“Jesus freaks?” He didn’t look at you as he made his assumption, instead focusing on laying out the tools you two would need. 

“He was— is a preacher; my dad.” 

It was all beginning to click into place— your near irrational fear of the world around you. The odd slip up in tenses wasn’t lost on him either, and it only added fuel to the fire of his building questions. 

“Preacher’s daughter, huh?” Sukuna whistled lowly in amusement. You hung your head down so your hair would curtain your face. “Surprised they let you leave the nest without a ring on your finger.”

He had been half expecting you to reciprocate his banter with that bashful defensiveness that seemed to roll off your tongue so easily, but you had fallen silent as he picked up the base of the table. Pulling his lips into a thin line, his eyes seemed to unconsciously drag down toward your neck, noting that it was still bare of the cross he’d unhooked from it weeks prior. An inexplicable guilt panged deeper at his chest with each second that passed within your silence. 

“Eh, I think it’s all bullshit, anyway.” He wanted to ease that tension he’d unknowingly placed upon your shoulder. A determined sigh escaped him as he shifted onto his knees. “Grab me one of the legs.” 

At this, you glanced up at him in surprise, lips parting gently, too thrown off by his confession to be relieved that he’d shifted the topic from your leaving home. With a fluttering gaze, you did as he asked. 

“What do you mean?”

“All that religious superiority crap— it’s all bullshit.” His reiteration only made you scoff out an uncertain laugh. A smirk tugged at his lips at your shock. “Quit blubbering and watch me. You’re doing the next one.”

“So what do you believe then?” You challenged, leaning against your hand that lay splayed out just beside his hip as you observed the way his hand curled around the grip of the power drill.

“If you’re asking me if I believe in some all knowing god or fairy or whatever the hell it is you people come up with to feel better about yourselves— then no. There ain’t no higher power, I don’t buy it.” 

The dull buzzing of the tool filled the small space separating the two of you. About a minute passed before he finished securing the respective screw, and he pulled back to assure you were still paying attention. Your eyes narrowed along with your accusatory smile. 

“You don’t really believe that.” 

“You don’t think so?” He muttered with a small smirk, nudging at your arm for you to take the power tool from him. 

Your breath hitched as his warm hand enveloped yours over the grip to press down against the two fingers you had placed over the trigger. The heat from his chest was radiating against your shoulder that had subsequently pressed right into him. Once he was sure you had grown used to the weight of the hefty tool in your grip, he slowly released your hand. 

“I think you only want to believe that.” You weren’t sure where you had found the nerve to test him in such a way, but something in the way his haughty smirk faltered subtly as you turned back to observe his reaction made you believe that there was some truth to your words. “It just sounds like you’re trying to convince yourself, is all.”

“Yeah? And what about you?” He prefaced his rebuttal by sweeping the hair from your neck, revealing the absence of your own symbol of belief. The sudden brush of his fingertips across your sensitive skin made your fingers stall against the trigger. “Never put that pretty necklace of yours back on.” 

“So?” You tried desperately to sound more confident than you felt at the moment, but the breathlessness that lingered in your tone betrayed you.

“So, maybe you’re trying to convince yourself that you still believe it, too.”

It was his fierce defensiveness over the walls he’d built around that part of him that was talking right now, stomping so carelessly over what was clearly a sensitive topic for you. No matter how much you didn’t want to hear it though, you knew he had dug deep, and you couldn’t understand how he had seen right through you. 

The guilt of your doubt was unlike anything you’d ever experienced before. Laying awake at night these days, you prayed and prayed for signs and answers, begging the Lord to tell you that what you had to do to protect yourself wouldn’t damn you. You were running though— running from the very temple you were meant to be tethered to. Would God grant you his mercy still? And if he was a merciless God, would it be so blasphemous of you to turn your cheek against him?

Your pained vulnerability reflected in your dewy eyes as they bore into his. Sukuna’s jaw ticked, taut with the type of vexation he only reserved for himself. It wasn’t his intention to wound you, only to disarm you against looking too deeply into him. If you pried too far, perhaps you would understand that he wasn’t just terribly astute. Rather, the doubt etched across your gentle features was much like a looking glass into his own past— he saw himself.

Sukuna blinked slowly at the war waging on in your mind against righteousness and safety, and he saw a young boy ostracized in the name of the Lord. He saw a boy frenzied in his turning the already frayed pages of his Bible in search of answers that would have been blurred by his tears should he have found them. In spite of all the ways his faith excommunicated him, even he couldn’t deny the way the promise of an all merciful God comforted him even as he was tearing himself away from such sentiments. 

“Don’t listen to me.” The man finally grumbled, turning from you to survey the screw you’d just secured into the table. It was a bit crooked, splitting the wood surrounding it ever so slightly, but it was secure nonetheless. “It’s good to… believe in something bigger than you. Hold onto that.”

Because God only knew how lonely it felt to have been burned so savagely that he was rendered incapable of belief, but the sting of the Father’s loving punishments always hurt much more. 

Sukuna left you that afternoon with a freshly built coffee table and more confusion than someone who seemed so sure of himself should have been able to provide. Sinking down on your couch, you eyes remained glued to the fruits of yours and his labor, your mind running over all the eye rolls of feigned annoyance he’d offer whenever you’d mess something up. None of them ever negated the subtle pride evident in the twitch of his lips every time you’d beam up at him with the hope that you’d finally gotten a technique down. 

No matter how quickly he tried to backtrack, his words only fed the ever growing mountain of doubt that had sprung up before you had even packed your first bag to leave home. It sounded personal to him, as though he was speaking from painful first-hand experience. Just a few months ago, someone so confidently spouting heresy in such a way would’ve had you running the other way, back to the safety of conformity. Now though it only seemed to draw you deeper into his contrasting orbit. 

Each lingering, crimson stare and brush of his calloused hand worked their way into perspiring dreams, accompanied by sensations of longing you weren’t sure you had ever allowed yourself to feel. Either that, or the neatly groomed, prim and proper boys of your church you had been surrounded by growing up could never come close to permeating the barrier the Lord had put up in your mind against sinful thoughts of temptation. 

Sukuna though— Sukuna was temptation incarnate. He was everything you had been warned against, and he seemed to have been pulled straight from Ezekiel, boiling over with each accusation the Lord wrought against Lucifer. He was the seal of perfection, that sharp tongue of his full of wisdom, and his flesh perfect in beauty. The signs all pointed toward deception— yet, much like a naive and longing Eve, not even the fear of damnation could hinder you from how sweet that forbidden fruit might taste against your awaiting lips. 

“Focus.” Sukuna growled as you were knocked onto your back for the third time that day. 

Though it took every ounce of courage left in you to show up for your next lesson the following week, that gnawing urge to let your fingertips brush against the fire outweighed any survival instinct you held for your poor soul. It might as well have been for not though, because you couldn’t for the life of you concentrate hard enough to brace yourself for the test attacks he continued sending your way. 

The trainer wasn’t fairing any better though. This had somehow become personal to him. Each strike he was able to land and stance he was able to dismantle struck an unanticipated irritation in his chest, because if he was able to disarm you so easily— surely someone else with less favorable intentions would be able to as well. He tried to be tougher on you, push you harder, but, in truth, it was difficult for him to focus on his own technique each time he pressed himself against you in demonstration. 

It was borderline pathetic. Sukuna had been in this field for years now, and he prided himself on the level of professionalism he always maintained with his students. Perhaps it was one of the reasons he never allowed himself to toe the barrier of professionalism and connection, because they could pant and press against him all they wanted, but it never meant anything to him— not until you. 

That type of determination in your eyes wasn’t uncommon for the women who came in for self-defense classes, but his fatal mistake was digging deeper. Now, despite the puzzle pieces still being strewn about and disorganized, he still held an ample amount of them to begin to be able to see the bigger picture. 

“I’m trying.” You huffed out in frustration, brows drawn together in subtle embarrassment as you took his outstretched hand to help you up. 

“Bullshit.” He spat out instantaneously as you stumbled up with the force of his pull.

 Shooting a palm out toward his chest to steady yourself, you tried to keep your eyes trained on anything but him. It was no use though— he had been picking up on each little lingering eye and flushed cheek of yours since last week, and it was driving him insane. 

“Shouldn’t you be teaching me how to like… I don’t know not get kidnapped?”

“Should I be?” He challenged immediately, and this time his bewitching eyes caught yours with no real intent of ever letting them go. The question was calculated— prying. Sukuna wanted to know why you were here, that much you could tell.

“Aren’t you the teacher?” You tried to reciprocate that same level of trial, but this type of banter was new to you— especially with a man. 

“Aren’t you the one paying me?” 

Sukuna’s lip curled up at the way your resolve slipped under his logic. Nonetheless, he hung his head for a moment as though collecting himself before stepping back a few paces. Once backed up sufficiently, he nodded at you. 

“Okay— new lesson. Try to escape.”

“What am I escaping?” You laughed hesitantly, looking around the small gym like a child would scope out potential hide-and-seek locations. 

At once, a wolfish grin lit up his face, casting his eyes ablaze with a dangerous glint that had you regretting asking for a change of pace in the first place. A nervous gulp forced its way down your throat.

“Me.”

No quicker than you could process his response was he lunging forward, his monstrous hand closing around your forearm in a crushing grip. You yelped in surprise as he tugged you forward. 

“C‘mon, you would’ve been in the back of the van by now, Princess.” He taunted as he watched you struggle against him. “What would you do?”

With a grunt, you tried to pull away from his hand’s demanding weight, but it only made your wrist ache with the strained effort. 

“Ground your feet again.” The man demanded, continuing to yank at your arm. “Forget your posture and your ass is getting taken.” 

It took a disciplined focus to halt your attempts to fight against him long enough to plant your socked feet into the mat once again. With the proper distance and subtle bend of your legs, it had admittedly become easier to keep yourself from falling against his firm tugs. 

“See where my thumb is?” His free hand reached up to pat at where his thumb curled around his middle finger on your forearm. “It’s the weakest part of my grip. Twist your arm out toward the weak spot instead of fighting against the strongest part.” 

With a fluttering gaze of determination, your face scrunched up as you maneuvered your arm against the Achilles heel he’d revealed to you. A triumphant laugh escaped you as your arm twisted underneath his own and subsequently broke free. There was barely an opportunity given for you to give a hop of glee, because Sukuna wasted no time lunging forward once again. The motion made you squeak in surprise, jumping into action to race across the gym, where his thundering footsteps weren’t far behind. 

“What happened to your victory dance, Princess?” The man taunted as you ducked behind the counter, knocking over your abandoned bag in the midst of your pursuit. He prowled on the other side, knees bent ever so slightly as if waiting for the perfect opportunity to pounce on you. With a mocking tilt of his head, he offered you an intoxicating smirk. “What— you think a kidnapper’s gonna let you go just cause you got out once?”

“Well, I was hoping he would—” You jolted to the right as he pounced to the left as though to swoop in on you. An anxiously tickled smile tugged at your lips. “—grant me a little mercy considering I got it on my first try?”

“He was granting you mercy by giving you a head start.” 

A shriek left you as you watched him hop over the counter with ease. Adrenaline was coursing through your veins as you barely escaped his grasp, his fingertips catching against the fabric of your t-shirt. In the back of your mind, you knew you should have been taking this seriously, and your activated fight or flight response certainly was. The less disciplined part of you though— the one still riding on the high of her newfound freedom— couldn’t help but like the game of cat and mouse he had sprung upon you. 

It was something in his predatory eyes and lascvisious smile, with his canines glittering under the dim lights above you— it was almost making you want to be caught. You wanted to know what he would do, how his victory would translate against the grips of his sinful hands. 

That shuddering falter in your step as the blood rushed down your body made sure you’d find out soon though, because his arms were quickly taking advantage of your misstep, wrapping around you from behind to clutch at your wrists. You couldn’t stifle the gasp that ripped up your throat as he pressed himself against your back.

“What now, hm?” Sukuna challenged as you finally began to struggle against his grip. 

You could barely concentrate enough to hypothesize what might be the right technique to use here, because heat was bursting from his chest and soaking through your clothes like rays of the sun, and it was rendering you useless, your breathing laboring with each nudge of his chin against the crown of your head. 

“Drop your weight.” He finally offered, and it sounded as though he was expending no effort to keep you secured. 

Against his chest, he could feel each ragged expand and deflate of your ribcage as it became clear it wasn’t only him being affected by the proximity. Though his mind was telling him to hold you tighter, keep you this close just a bit longer, he wasn’t sure how long he could maintain his composure without causing a serious problem. 

With a shuddering nod, you allowed yourself to fall into his grasp, your t-shirt sliding up with the sudden movement. 

“Faster— all at once. You’re supposed to catch them by surprise, make them lose grip.” His arms quickly hoisted you back up in tandem with his barking order. “Do it again.”

You nodded deliriously at his command, nearly drunk on the scent of his body wash lingering on his perspiring skin. Doing as he said, you quickly kicked your feet out from underneath you, your weight falling limply into his arms. 

Sukuna grunted softly, and you had assumed it was from this catching your now dead weight. You were painfully unaware of how the swell of your ass had rolled against his groin on your way down, and he was fighting forces greater than demons to continue this lesson. Glancing up toward the ceiling in a desperate attempt to shift his focus, he sucked in a calculated breath. 

“Good, now wriggle out with your hips, make it impossible to keep the grip on you.” 

He regretted his instruction as soon as it left his mouth— because just as you began writhing out of his grasp, no mouth of counting back from one-hundred, or repeating multiplication tables he hadn’t thought of since middle school was able to stop all the blood remaining in his brain from rushing to his dick. 

“C’mon,” The man grunted half out of desperation for this to be over with already to maintain any sense of professionalism he could still manage. “Use your feet— kick me— get out.”

In your hazed oblivion, you did as you were told, swinging back to land a barely impactful kick to his shin. When that did nothing, you reared back once more, this time making sure your foot collided with his knee. This maneuver finally did him in, though his arms remained locked around you as his leg gave out under him.

You tumbled to the ground along with him, the air temporarily abandoning your lungs at the impact of his firm chest against your rib cage. From under you, he groaned from what you thought was the force at which he hit the ground. Unbeknownst to you though, it was the fact that you were now frantically shuffling around to apologize to him, and you had sat directly onto his growing… dilemma. 

“I’m so sorry.” You gasped out, your hands that had finally been released falling forward on either side of his head to support yourself. “Are you…”

Your breathless concern trailed off as you looked down at him to find he was already staring up at you, ruby eyes half-lidded with a certain hunger you weren’t sure you could place. Despite this, the intensity of them made an incriminating heat spread between your legs. Unlike you, Sukuna had experience in this walk of life, and he could pinpoint that look in your eyes that told him he wasn’t alone in his wandering thoughts. Still, he felt it was far from his place to make the first move— not when you’d clearly never been in such a position before. 

So, he stayed perfectly still beneath you, save for the ragged rise and fall of his chest as your hair curtained around him and enveloped him in your scent. The tips of his fingers dug into the cushioned mat beneath him. 

The tendrils of temptation swirling in his heated eyes made you realize that it was no wonder you had been so quick to believe the cautionary tales you were told about lust growing up. In all your years being raised alongside what were meant to be God’s children, his born again men, all of the lecherous gazes sent your way in the midst of sermons or while receiving the body and the blood— every last one of them held the threat of caged animals. 

God said to abstain from the passions of the flesh because they’d wage war against your soul, but the scripture failed to mention the white flags your heart would so quickly wave when met by the eyes of the right beholder. Sukuna wasn’t sin, or lewd temptation— he wasn’t the morning star that would soon capture you in his fall from grace, despite how the uncharted emotions he stirred in you led you to believe. He couldn’t possibly be all those things— not when he was staring up at you as though your poorly timed awakening was a gift you were bestowing upon him. 

The apprehension in your gaze was palpable, and, though he couldn’t be sure what his encouragement might mean, he allowed his head to tilt in the subtlest of nods at you. You hoped all the romance novels that you’d hide under the shoebox in your old bedroom hadn’t failed you as you leaned down with a timid quiver of your lips to offer your first kiss to him, one he could feel all the years of repression hidden behind. 

A baritoned hum reverberated in the back of his throat as he allowed his eyes to shut, relishing in the feeling of your exploration. The sound served to validate your reserved actions, allowing you to melt against the way his doughy lips molded against you with all the confidence of an experienced man. Your chest gradually lowered against his, the hands that had since been idle by his head instinctively sliding up to grasp at his strapping shoulders that flexed dangerously under your touch. 

It felt as though that incandescent ball of energy that had been building in your chest since the moment you first laid eyes on him was traveling up your throat, trailing a blazing heat in its wake while it spilled from your whimpering lips to find its home in him. Sukuna’s neck strained up to hungrily leverage a better angle to take whatever it was that you were willing to offer him. 

The way your hands remained ever so timid in their exploration, one remaining balanced on his shoulder as the other trailed hesitantly up his neck— it was filling him with a warmth unbeknownst to him if from the anticipation of your next move, or the burning fondness that seemed to gnaw at his stone heart each time he was reminded of the innocence that had been forced on you. Whichever it was, it had his hands finally moving from their respectful place on the ground to lace your fingers together, guiding your trembling hand up to brush against his flexing jaw and heating cheeks until the message was set in stone that you could do with him whatever you pleased.

The sudden reassurance made way for your fingers’ insatiable journey up the remainder of his face and into his pink tufts of hair. Sukuna moaned unabashedly at the sensation of your once shy grip curling into his roots, the sound sending shockwaves through your already buzzing system as he bit at your bottom lip before his tongue raced out to chase the subtle sting away. 

You arched against him, and it was then that you became painfully aware of the unfamiliar stiffness pressing against you. Though you knew that you had already crossed that strictly set moral line separating your human instinct from the parts of you that you could actually accept, it was still evident that this was completely different territory than a mere kiss. Even so, you couldn’t deny the way his concealed arousal excited you, pulling you like a magnet deeper into his allure.

The hand you had remaining on his chest curled into the fabric of his compression shirt as you pressed your hips down in a way you hoped was subtle. Of course, he could feel every breath and tremble of you though, and most definitely heard your gasp when your small shift caused him to press sinfully against your own heat. 

It wasn’t what he had expected, not with how much courage it seemed to have taken for you to give into your temptation to simply kiss him, but he was pliant beneath you. Sukuna was offering up his own body to the altar of your self-discovery— and despite all the verses he swore to erase from his mind, he could suddenly recall through his wanton haze that the Bible referred to one’s own body being offered in sacrifice as the utmost form of spiritual worship. It was far from him to agree with the very pages that tormented his youth, but as you experimentally rolled your hips against him to chase that pooling desire spreading through you, he was sure that he was a man of the Lord once again. 

Your lips parted from his, foreheads still pressed together while the barely audible, breathless moans slipped from you. He watched your expression fervently, taking note of that subtle frustration that creased between your brows in the pursuit of a relief that your clumsy ruts were insufficient to provide. Reaching up, his hands closed around your waist to adjust you over his straining length. 

“Try now.” Sukuna instructed in that husky tone of his that only made your affliction that much more damning, slipping a strand of your hair carefully behind your ear to get a better look at you.

Ever the obedient student, you did as he said, though it hardly took any effort on your end as his urging hands aided in the steady rhythm of your thrusts. It wasn’t long before you were steadying your hands against his chest, too overwhelmed by the foreign pleasure to be embarrassed by your pitched moans. 

Faster than you could grasp, everything that you had been told for so long was being pushed to the back of your mind to make room for him. He was rendering you utterly speechless with only his half-lidded stare and charitable hands. Sukuna thought if he didn’t keep his hands glued to your hips that they may be tempted to drift up your top, ablaze with an infuriating curiosity of what it was you always hid under those baggy shirts. 

He didn’t though, and perhaps that’s why you felt emboldened enough to chase the pleasure you’d been told was corrupt all this time. You couldn’t possibly feel the immorality the congregation always spat upon the act, because his hands were so much different than the pleasure-driven ones that grabbed at you with no regard to your own wishes. Sukuna’s hands were driven by a desire to teach you as they had been doing so diligently for weeks now, eyes studying you much like they studied your posture before you’d take a swing at him. 

Your release was building, swirling within the pits of your stomach and so incriminatingly evident in your shortening gasps, your scrunched face and nails that dug into the firm muscles of his clothed chest. The groan that escaped him sounded so melodic through the blood coursing in your ears. It left your fingertips brushing against the waves of your release, encouraged by the knowing glint in his eyes. 

A muted gasp of his name began to fall from your parted lips, but he only nodded at you hazily. 

“I know, Princess, c’mon.” 

The safety of his encouragement had you tipping over that rapidly building precipice, squeezing your eyes shut until he tapped at your ass with a firm command to look at him. It was when you opened your eyes back up though, a peculiar type of fuzziness clouding the edges when a glimmering caught your attention from your peripheral. Your gaze drifted up to where the dull lights were catching on the charm sprawled out on the floor by your fallen bag. It was your cross necklace— the one that had been lying forgotten at the bottom of your bag for weeks now. 

The sight of it clutched at your already racing heart, bringing you to a stammering halt as you jolted back with a mortified gasp. Sukuna quickly sat up at the sudden abandonment of your release.

“What—”

“I-I’m so sorry.” You whispered frantically, your fluttering gaze desperately attempting to hold back the tears lining your waterline. 

You flinched back when his grip on your waist tightened with concern, and it was enough to make him release you all together. His hands fell slowly in bewilderment while you shuffled backwards until you were off of him. 

“The fuck do you mean ‘sorry’?” His tone was harsh as always, but he just wanted to understand the sudden fear in your energy that hadn’t flared up in his presence since that first time you two met. 

“I shouldn’t have…” You shook your head, a trembling hand coming up to cover the lips that you’d allowed to act so blasphemously. “It was wrong, I—”

“Did it look like you were doing anything fucking wrong to me?” 

“But I should have known better— I do know better.” At this point, it appeared as though you weren’t talking to him anymore, but to yourself, to whatever part of you was telling you that what you two just shared was anything other than pure. Shaking your head, you stumbled up to your feet, and Sukuna quickly followed suit. “If they found out—”

You stopped yourself, almost as though you knew you were about to open a can of worms that he would not be so easily coaxed to close back up. He narrowed his sharp eyes at you. 

“If who found out?”

“I should leave—”

“Like hell you should.” Sukuna hulking arm shot out over your head to shut the door you were frantically prying open. The tears you had been desperately withholding were stinging furiously at your fluttering eyes. “Who are you trying to protect yourself from?”

At his astute question, you only looked down, somehow feeling both exposed and safe entrapped by his imposing figure. 

“Huh?”

“I don’t know, Sukuna.”

“You don’t know.” He chuckled bitterly with a nod, staring at the wall by your head with a far off look in his eyes that told you he wasn’t letting this go anytime soon. “Why don’t you show me what you’ve learned then, huh?”

An urging hand was placed at the small of your back, and he was leading you quickly back to the mat. 

“Please, just let—”

“Nah, we’ve still got half an hour left.” Sukuna firmly shut down your plea before nodding for you to get into proper form. “Go ahead and take me down.” 

It didn’t matter how unwavering you attempted to make your glare, his firm stance didn’t falter as he awaited your first move with a calloused expression that contrasted so starkly against the passionate way he was gazing up at you just minutes prior. Sinking your teeth harshly into your bottom lip, your body trembled as you adjusted your posture and lunged into a side step to swipe at his feet. 

It was just as he’d taught you— always using your opponent’s size against them to knock them off balance. You had done it perfectly too, but this time around he wasn’t so lenient in falling over in demonstration as he normally did. This time, he had a point to prove, and his firmly planted feet didn’t falter at your sweep as he took the opportunity to reach down and swallow you up by your midsection. 

A grunt of frustration rolled from you as he hoisted you easily into the air. You kicked out your legs, trying with every last ounce of your waning energy to hit his groin, his shins, stomach— anywhere that might allow you to escape. It was all for naught though, and he was absorbing each of your comparably weak blows as he kneeled to the ground and pinned you beneath him. 

“Escape.” The practically fuming man commanded again, pinning both your hands at the small of your back. 

Your flaming cheek was pressed against the cushioned mat, beginning to gloss over with the sheen of sweat your exertion was producing. Each exasperated pant that escaped you was bringing you closer and closer to understanding just what it was that he was trying to prove, yet you still strained against his grip and jostled your shoulders desperately. 

“What are you gonna do if whoever the fuck they are find you, huh?” He had lowered himself until his chest was pressed against your back, his lips brushing against your feverish ear. 

The since built up tears finally boiled over as the last shred of hope and energy abandoned you, falling limp against the mat as the salty waves cascaded freely down your cheeks. His grip on your wrists slowly eased up, and that harsh scowl was being replaced with a more resigned frown. 

“I can’t help you if you don’t talk to me.” Sukuna rationed with you. 

In truth, his resolve was breaking with each heaving sob that spilled from your lips. Finally releasing you all together, he watched in barely concealed unease as you made no attempt to move from your position on the floor. So, he instead worked to pull you up himself, shoving your trembling form against his chest as his eyes remained locked blankly at the counter behind you. 

“I left— I-I ran away.” Your confession was barely comprehensible through your desolate sobs. “I didn’t tell anyone, I just left. I had to leave. I had to—”

“What do you mean you had to?”

Your nose burrowed deeper into his sternum before you shook your head. 

“I tried; I tried, and I prayed, and I begged God to lead me back on his path, but I just… I couldn’t do it anymore.” You continued to babble as you clutched at his shirt. The more you spiraled down the memories you left behind, the more scared he was becoming of what you might tell him. “I thought he was trying to test me— test my faith, but how could I trust in a God that abandoned me like that? That let them…”

Your face scrunched with the trailing of your words. It made a ball of nauseating dread pool in Sukuna’s stomach, his face hardening once again. 

“Let them what?”

“They told me that lust was blasphemous, that God’s children didn’t give into sins of the flesh, but they used the same hands to pray as they did to wander when offering me my blessings every Sunday. What was that supposed to tell me about my God?”

The man’s jaw clicked with the force of his clench as he absorbed your infuriated explanation. Your tears were rapidly becoming ones of rage, continuing to recall each time you stood in waiting, dreading your weekly eucharist as you knew how the associate preacher’s hands liked to stray too far as he performed the sign of the cross against your chest. 

“I thought I was doing the right thing.” You cried, pulling away from him to shove your face into your hands. “So why do I feel like I’ve damned myself? Like I’ve turned against God’s will?”

“God’s will wasn’t for you to be used by those lowlife fucking perverts hiding behind the Bible.” Sukuna finally snapped, trying with everything in him to level his voice lest he displace the rage swimming through his veins. 

“But how am I any better, Sukuna?” Your sudden outburst took him aback. “I gave in too.”

He scoffed incredulously at you. It wasn’t you that he was so bothered by though, it was the depths in which those people had sunk their claws into your psyche that irked him so deeply. Grasping at your jaw so you’d look him in the eyes, the solemn expression on his face made you shiver. 

“How are you any better? Because you wanted it this time, and so did I.” He emphasized, and your damp face flushed furiously at his words. “Don’t you dare fucking compare what they did to you to what happened back there.”

Clutching at the wrist of the hand that grasped you, you tugged at it to no avail, shaking your head once again against his hand. 

“You don’t get it—”

“Oh, I don’t?” Another menacingly bitter laugh slipped past his lips. “You don’t think I grew up hearing the same bullshit? That I had to beg forgiveness for shit that wasn’t my responsibility to be sorry for?” 

The grip you had around his wrist faltered as his words sunk in. You allowed your eyes to rake over his tattooed face, as though you couldn’t believe that someone who appeared so starkly different than you had once absorbed the very lessons that had placed you before him in the first place. 

“I had a twin, you know— least I was supposed to. Preacher used to tell my mom that God took her baby away because she gave into temptation out of wedlock.” 

The tremble in your bottom lip didn’t stop him from driving his point home, not even when your eyes began to pool once again with regret. 

“You know I still remember that damn verse line for line? No matter how much I tried to forget it.” Sukuna’s desolate tone continued to tug at your heartstrings, but it was almost freeing to hear that perhaps you weren’t the only one forced by your circumstances to question the faith that had been thrust upon you. “‘But every man is tempted, when he is drawn away from his own lust, and enticed. Then when lust hath conceived, it bringeth forth sin; and sin, when it is finished, bringeth forth death.’”

His thumb reached up to swipe at the fresh tears that began to fall from your sorrowful eyes despite the fact that it was his grief that was filling the space between you. He had finished his drawn out battle against his own spirit long ago though. 

“You think that’s what I am? Death conceived? That I was a punishment from God cause my mom wanted to fool around?”

“No— I don’t think that.” You finally cried out firmly, and it was the first decision you’d made in quite awhile that you felt confident in. “You’re none of those things. I won’t believe that.”

“How do you know that?” He tested, drawing you closer to him with a burning desire to kiss away each tear that dared disturb that kind face of yours.

“Because you’re good, and you’re kind, and you’re everything they ever told me to be afraid of,” You heard the sharp inhale he tried to conceal, because of all the sharp tongues that had spat troves of profanities at him, no one had ever called him good. “But they were wrong about you, and so was I.”

Humming deeply at your explanation, he tilted his head at you. 

“So, what the fuck makes you think they were right about anything else?” 

His challenge lingered in the heavy air between you, your breaths mingling as you stared down at the lips that had just spun your world on its axis. It had been a lifetime of being told that your body wasn’t to be trusted— that it would test and betray you time and time again. At the very least, despite the notion acting as a marionette puppetting each thought and breath you’d experienced thus far, there was some sort of safety in the familiarity of your cage. 

Still, Sukuna seemed to be awaiting you outside the confinement of your apprehension with all the beauty you once thought akin to the devil himself, but you had come to realize that he was the closest thing to holy you’d ever held within your grasp before. You wrestled with the part of you that had been conditioned to believe your worth was in your virtue and your purity, and the part of you that thought his lips were proof that man truly was created in God’s image.

He could see the storm brewing behind your apprehensive eyes, biting back the sharp lecture that was instinctively conjuring up in the back of his mind that would shake at your shoulders to snap out of the chains they’d bound your mind with. Instead, a strained sigh fanned out across your face, and he was suddenly reaching behind you to grab your abandoned necklace. 

“I’m not telling you to give all this shit up.” He murmured, twisting the cool, silver cross between his fingers.

 Looking down at the pendant, you weren’t sure that you could recall a time that it ever appeared so blinding. After a moment of contemplation, he lifted it carefully before draping it across your neck once again. Your nose brushed against his chest as he leaned forward to secure the clasp in the back. Of all the years it spent weighing down on your chest, you couldn’t help but feel that Sukuna had taken a certain weight off of it that had since been suffocating you. 

The tips of his hair tickled at your cheek as his head dipped down to press heated kisses to your jaw. Your lips parted, head falling to the side unconsciously to allow him more room. The gentle moans he was procuring from you made the corners of his lips twitch up as they trailed down your neck and left goosebumps in their wake. It wasn’t long before his descent led him to the pendant laying proudly against your chest, and he pressed a final kiss to it before lifting his head once again. 

“But don’t let it make you believe shit you don’t want to, you hear me?” You only nodded, eyes transfixed on his lips as they drew closer to yours. His thumb pressed down against your chin to hold you in place for him to offer you a fervent kiss, sighing yearningly into you before pulling back. “If I’m not a sin then you sure as hell aren’t one either.”

You smiled softly at his words, chasing his lips while your hands twisted more confidently up his nape and into his hair. 

Truthfully, you weren’t sure if it mattered to you anymore whether or not Sukuna was sin incarnate, or a test of your faith, or God’s punishment to an unholy woman, or whatever it was that your father would so ardently convince you of. Right now, his hands were traversing your waist with a tenderness no man had ever bestowed upon you, and his heathen tongue was knocking at your lips in search of permission to enter. You understood more with every inch of you he kissed why Lucifer had fallen from grace with the hope of being worshipped himself.

Your father, if he was even looking for the daughter that had fled from his feigned mercy, would simply have to forgive you of your sins.

a/n: where my ethel cain girlies at

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I love hearing everyone's thoughts! ◝⠀(ᵔᵕᵔ)⠀◜

[tvxcue]

society if sam had died in the panic room............................................

[spnangelbang]

“The Garden’s Keeper” - Tuesday, July 25

Author: Gitten Artist:  Dimitri Evans ( @dimitrirmy​​​ ) Rating: Teen and Up Featured characters: Gadreel, Castiel, Sam Winchester, Dean Winchester, Crowley Featured relationships:  None Length: 80,000 words Tags: Canon compliant, Alternate season nine, Mark of Cain, Canon typical violence Warnings: Major Character Death

Summary:  After being expelled from Sam's body, Gadreel is unable to believe in Metatron's vision anymore. He joins Castiel's side and tries to earn Sam and Dean's trust after he makes a risky deal to help them. However, facing Metatron and Abaddon is just half of the challenge as Sam still struggles with feelings of guilt and Dean is losing control fast because of the Mark of Cain. Gadreel has to deal with all of it if he wants to be known as anything else than just the fallen from grace guardian of the Garden of Eden.

Excerpt:

Gadreel looked at the angel he had easily overpowered and the confused look in those eyes assured him that he wouldn’t be able to finish this job. He realized he was feeling conflicted about it, which was a very odd reaction for him. Until recently, killing someone had never felt particularly hard or wrong. Gadreel let go of his already disarmed target. “Change your vessel and lay low, Agiel” he said. “Your survival must remain a secret for the sake of us both.” 

The other angel stared at him for a few seconds. “Am I supposed to just hide for the rest of my life? I was…” he began, his voice breaking for a second. “I was doing fine until you showed up, finally building a life outside Heaven… Why couldn’t you just leave me be?” 

“I had orders to follow.” 

“Orders…” Agiel repeated with disgust. “Not a word that means that much since the Fall, is it? God let us be thrown out of Heaven and our wings be burnt beyond repair so now we even have to walk like earthly vermin instead of flying. He didn’t answer to any of our prayers, no matter how many eons we followed his will. So what orders could be more important and less meaningless than those from God?” 

“The orders of a new God” Gadreel replied, hoping to sound more convinced than he really was by the title Metatron had chosen for himself. 

Agiel scoffed. “What happened to you, Gadreel? You used to be… well, better than this before your mistake.” 

“If you really wanted to know that you would have visited me while I was unfairly imprisoned, brother.” 

Gadreel could see on Agiel’s face that he wanted to fight that statement, but the other angel ended up remaining quiet.

[quietwingsinthesky]

Two Birds With One Saw

Rating: Mature

Archive Warning: Graphic Depictions Of Violence

Fandom: Supernatural

Ship: Gen (Dean & Sam)

Additional Tags: Amputation, Blood and Gore, Major Character Injury, Suicidal Thoughts, Emotional/Psychological Abuse, Vomiting, Fainting, Season/Series 10, Cure for the Mark of Cain (Supernatural), Phone Calls & Telephones, Ambiguous/Open Ending, Dean Winchester Whump, Hurt Dean Winchester

Wordcount: 2363

Summary:

Dean is going to get rid of the Mark of Cain, whatever it takes. He’s going to have to do it alone.

Dad had taught Dean how to make a tourniquet when he was eleven years old. He’d known how to do it desperate, when you had few supplies and fewer minutes to stop the bleeding before you were carrying a corpse back rather than your buddy. Dean hadn’t asked then, and never did, how many times John got it wrong before he’d gotten any good at them. It wasn’t the sort of thing that occurred to a kid, not one who saw their dad take down creatures twice his size to protect his son, the one he sat out in the open to lure them in. It came to Dean a lot more as an adult when the people dared care about dropped like flies around him.

It felt like their world had gotten so much smaller, though it was already a corner all their own to begin with, only a few familiar faces popping in to say hi. Dad’s bones would be rotted clean by now if Dean hadn’t burned them himself. Jo and Ellen were ghosts that Dean had trouble remembering the voices of. Rufus went out too quickly to say goodbye, and Bobby went out too slowly for it not to hurt. The old guard was down to him and Sam.

And the Mark on Dean’s arm made him more monster than man. Hell, if Dean was someone else, he’d want to hunt himself. Not that it would do any good, down for the count an hour or three and back out of the grave with black eyes and a fuzzy grasp on why he shouldn’t bash his brother’s brains in.

Dean shuddered. His arm was almost numb below his elbow. The tourniquet squeezed the life out of him, but even through the dim sensation beyond it, he felt the Mark digging its claws into him as deep as it could. Dean grinned, drunk off the adrenaline seeing the saw he’d sharpened up for this sent through his body.

And off of the bottles littering the floor around their kitchen counter. It had seemed funny when he handcuffed himself to it: chopping a hunk of himself off where he cut up the deli meat from that little place Sam liked. He couldn’t feel the cold metal of the cuff anymore or the counter beneath his arm. There was only dull pressure left. He glanced down at his fingers and moved them barely. The were tipped in blue.

Dean reached for his phone. He tapped out Sam’s phone number and held it to his ear until he heard it ring. The sound of it rattled through Dean’s skull as his vision swam. He leaned more of his weight against the counter. His other hand clenched up into a fist. The saw glinted his own determined expression back at him, teeth bared for both him and the weapon he’d use to set himself free. Sam’s phone rang twice before he picked it up.

“Hey-”

“I’m cutting it off,” Dean told him. There wasn’t a point in beating around the bush. Sam’s silence was one of shocked confusion.

“Sorry?” He paused, and without seeing him, Dean could picture his frown perfectly, a wrinkle between his brows and his nose scrunched up. He’d been doing it since he was a kid. Dean wondered if Sam knew how much he looked like Dad when he made that face. “Are you drunk?”

“Very,” Dean answered. He’d done his job in worse condition. Sam knew that. “I’m only calling to make sure you start heading home. I don’t want to die of blood loss.”

“What?” Sam said, alarmed now. He couldn’t write whatever Dean was saying off to drunken rambles. Good. This was serious. “Dean-”

“Listen. My arm. The one with the Mark. I’m cutting it off. No more fucking around trying to find a cure. I’m taking care of it, Sammy.” He heard Sam’s breathing pick up on the other end of the phone. He’d be paler, Dean thought, and his eyes would be wide and watery with panic.

“Dean, don’t. You-”

“I didn’t call you to talk me out of it,” he snapped, a tendril of anger that was clever enough to feel like his own strangling him. He tried to rein it back in, but he still sounded like he was trying to bite Sam’s head off. “Get in your car. Go back to the Bunker. Get ready to keep me from dying.”

Sam didn’t say a word. All Dean could hear was his breathing and the faint sound of his pacing footsteps. Dean stared down at the saw. It was so easy. He couldn’t believe they hadn’t thought of it before. If he trusted Sam to make the tough call, he’d have had him here to take the damn arm off himself while Dean was strapped down, but Sam wasn’t capable of that anymore. (And Dean was good at telling him what was going to happen over the phone, but facing down those eyes begging him to stop in person? He couldn’t take the chance that he’d back down. This was for Sam’s own good as much as Dean’s.)

“No,” Sam said, his voice shaking. “I’m- I’m not. I’m staying right here.” Dean glared at the opposite wall. The Mark whispered to him a tempting fantasy, his hands around Sam’s neck, choking him out until the only words out of his mouth were, Yes, sir. I’m on my way.

Dean bashed his fist against the counter. He didn’t have to see Sam flinch. He knew it had happened. No matter how far away Sam was from him right now, he was still scared of Dean.

“What the Hell do you mean ‘no’?” Dean demanded.

“I’m not coming. I’m not going home to find you bleeding out on the floor.” Dean worked his jaw. It stung like betrayal, but he knew his brother better. Sam was aiming higher than that. He was looking for a bluff that didn’t exist, thinking he could make Dean stop if he stayed away. Dean let out a long, slow exhale. Calm settled over him. The Mark’s heartbeat was steady up his numb arm, and he didn’t care what he had to do to silence it.

“You’ve been waiting for this.” Dean knew where Sam was tender, easy to bruise. “Want me to know you keep your word, huh? Same circumstances, you won’t lift a finger to keep me from death’s door.” Sam made a noise, soft and hurt like a prey animal in the jaws of something hungry.

“That’s not-”

“You talk a big game about curing the Mark and saving me, but you don’t mean it. You’re just going to leave me to die.” Dean bit down harder, wringing more pained noises from Sam’s throat with each accusation.

“You won’t.” He didn’t know what Sam’s aiming for, but it ended up as begging. “You won’t do it. You’ll die if I don’t come, and I won’t, so-”

“So what?” Dean took the phone from his ear and set it down, turning it to speaker. “You don’t care enough to come save me. Why should I care if I live through this?” He was already a zombie thrice over, or a ghost, or a demon. If death wanted him so bad and Sam didn’t, why not hand himself over already, get rid of two cursed things with one fell chop?

“Dean-” Sam stopped, like he’d registered the change in Dean’s voice, how much further away he sounded from the speaker. Panic rose in him. “Dean, wait! Don’t do this!” Dean ignored him. The saw had a good weight to it, and Dean had been sharpening it to perfection for days alone in his room. Sam didn’t even notice. “Dean, please!” Sam made a sound Dean recognized as a sob, but that didn’t move him. That horrible pulse was drowning out Sam’s voice, leaving only Dean’s need to get rid of it. “I’ll come!” Sam pleaded, voice cracking, “I’ll come right now, just don’t hurt yourself. I didn’t mean it, okay? I’d do anything to save you. You were right. That’s what we do.”

“Glad you’re seeing reason,” Dean told Sam as he rested the teeth of the blade against his arm. Short hairs sheared away from his skin from how sharp the edge was. Sam’s footsteps pounded over the other end of the line, carrying him obediently back to his car and back to the Bunker. He adjusted his grip on the saw. The angle would be awkward, and Dean wasn’t sure how far he would manage to get through before he passed out.

“You’ll stop?” Sam said, with a beaten sort of hope.

“If you get here and this thing isn’t off of me, forget about saving my life. You saw the rest of it off first.” Dean heard the sound of a car door slamming shut.

“Don’t-”

“Hanging up now, Sam.”

“Wait!” Dean stopped just before he did. He could hear Sam’s shaky inhale. “Dean, if you’re dead before I get there…” He couldn’t finish that. Dean understood. There was no way to get used to the sight of your brother’s corpse.

For only a moment, Dean hesitated. Sam didn’t take his death well last time.

If he died right, that wouldn’t be his problem anymore, whispered something that had learned how to mimic his inner voice almost perfectly. He’d get Sam back eventually when he died, too. That was what mattered. He’d go out in a bloody blaze of glory and get his reward at the end.

“Don’t hang up,” Sam pleaded.

“I don’t want your last memories of me to be me screaming my head off,” Dean said. It had the shape of a joke, but it was built with too much honesty to hold itself up. It crumpled between them.

“Then don’t do this,” Sam said. Dean could hear the sound of Baby’s engine.

“Treat my car better this time.” The tourniquet was done right, but Sam could be minutes or hours away. Dean was starting to realize, no matter how tight he’d wrapped it, he hadn’t expected anyone to bring him back from this war. Not even Sam.

That thought didn’t make him hesitate the way widowing Sam did. Dean always knew he would die for the cause. He shut his eyes, bit the collar of his flannel between his teeth, and began to saw.

The pain burst up through the numb flesh like fireworks. Dean grunted as blood filled his vision, but he didn’t stop the harsh motion. The Mark pulsed with fury as Dean sawed into his arm. He tried to gauge through the pain if he was bleeding more or less than he should be, but that was a useless endeavor. He wasn’t stopping either way.

The saw freed fat from around his muscles, and Dean screamed for the first time. He could hear Sam yelling over the phone. His voice swirled around Dean’s head. Dean’s name joined the rhythm filling his ears, the Mark’s pulse against his own pounding heartbeat, the pain coming in waves against his brother’s terrified calls. Dean bore his weight down on the saw. He swore he could feel the muscle separating under the serrated edge. His arm split open into ugly meat. Dean’s suffocated blue fingers twitched at the end of it, but he couldn’t feel that, only watch them.

He hit bone faster than he thought he would. It resisted more than the rest of him, but Dean was going to break it off no matter what. His vision danced with black spots, grey at the edges and blurry in the middle. The white of his bones sticking through his cleaved muscle was the only thing he could focus on.

His own screams were in the chorus now. It didn’t feel like he was even making them anymore. His body was breaking apart. The only bits that still felt attached to him were the arm coming off and the one removing it. His legs were long gone, trapping him against the counter. His mouth wasn’t under his control anymore, and he could have been babbling anything to Sam without being aware of it. His bones cracked under the pressure of the saw, and he heard another of his own screams.

When he broke through the bone, he threw up. He wasn’t even aware of it until it was out of his throat, leaving only the burning taste of acid behind. He barely turned his head from his arm. Vomit splattered over his open wound and the tourniquet, burning against the wound. He could hear Sam say something, but it was all just noise now. A hum built up of everything Dean could still register. He might have yelled at Sam to shut up or might have only imagined doing so.

He rallied all the strength he had left. It wasn’t much, but supplemented with stubbornness, which he had in spades, it would get him through carving up the rest of his arm.

He didn’t notice the space between severing his tendons and lying on his back on the floor. He didn’t remember sawing through the last flaps of skin holding his arm together. He turned his head, but his arm was too far away, bent the wrong way. His hand reached back towards him, corpselike fingers curled stiffly against the floor. Dean stared at it. He raised his arm to get a better look at the saw wound, grasping weakly with his other hand for the saw but not finding it anywhere on the floor on his other side.

His upper arm moved. His hand stayed where it was until the sawed off stump below the tourniquet, sluggishly bleeding out, nudged against his fingers.

Dean laughed. He couldn’t feel the Mark anymore.

He couldn’t hear himself laughing either. He just felt the way his chest convulsed and his lips pulled wide across his face. He couldn’t hear anything at all. He blinked, and his hand seemed to blur. He blinked again, and all that was left was blotches of dim color across his vision.

He shut his eyes, and there was only darkness.

(Enjoyed it? Any interaction is welcomed. You can even support me on Ko-Fi <3)

[annmariethrush]

okay so I'm deep diving into dean meta for an unhinged PowerPoint I'm gonna force on some friends and you made a post forever ago about ketch as a foil for dean and I'm just curious if you would be willing to elaborate? this sounds fascinating and I'd love to hear your thoughts about it !!!

Omg hi I’m ALWAYS happy to talk about Dean and Ketch!!!!! This is probably gonna be a slightly raggedy explanation cause I haven’t rewatched since that post I made but here goes.

First and foremost Dean and Ketch have a lot in common. Ketch (as with all the British men of letters) was traumatized at a relatively young age with the idea that he had to be and do things that he didn’t necessarily want to in order to protect the world from horrible things. He is driven by this trauma to be really incredibly good at what he does, which starts to include things outside of the black and white range of killing “evil monsters” like murdering his coworkers and torturing humans who ostensibly have the same goal as him. However this gets regularly reinforced because of how successful he is at this job— he is undeniably an incredibly skilled killer and torturer and kinda spy sometimes. All of this makes him more and more willing to do horrible things that he might not have wanted to do originally because he’s being told that this is how to protect the world and that he has to do the hard things so other people don’t have to.

Dean goes through a really similar process with his dad which I’m sure you’re more familiar with. He gets taught growing up that he has to do hard things (murder, emotional repression, adultification) in order to protect Sam and eventually to protect the world once he’s older. As we go through the seasons we see Dean start to falter on the black and white world view about monsters (the demon couple in S4 being one of the earliest examples that comes to mind) and start to realize that the world is more complicated and deserves a case by case basis for things, something he is able to do because his dad is dead and he’s his own boss. Despite this new flexibility, he still feels the responsibility to do things he’s good at (hunting) when he knows he’d be happier not doing it which is a regular source of internal and external conflict for him throughout the series.

Dean is known for not wanting to interrogate his own emotions and trauma, so when presented with someone who seems so similar to him in his resolve to do what it takes for his own ideas about protecting the world but being kinda evil about it he reacts aggressively. Obviously there are lots of other tensions between the two of them throughout S12, but the conversation they have in the Bunker over a bottle of scotch is really fascinating. Ketch spends most of it trying to appeal to what he sees as similarities with himself in Dean, ultimately concluding that the thing that links them is that they’re both killers. This is something lots of characters conclude about dean, that he is the ultimate killer (see: mark of Cain arc, S15 Chuck). However, unlike most other people who see Dean this way (including Dean himself sometimes), Ketch actually likes this about Dean. It’s something he can really respect even on opposite sides of a fight and the thing he’s been taught to value about himself. Obviously, this doesn’t go over as a bonding moment for Dean like Ketch wants cause Dean wants to be more than just a killer and does occasionally have an ounce of self worth.

When Ketch comes to kill dean at the end of the season, there’s a sense of taunting with the fact that Dean is going to have to kill him, undermining the sense of self worth at least a bit, or Ketch is gonna get to kill him, proving himself as the ultimate killer. This is cut with Mary killing him, because she’s the one who Ketch has truly wronged (there’s so much to say here about Mary being a foil for Dean too and how that works with her and Ketch but that’s more an aside)

Anyway from there the foil starts to ease up a bit and Ketch takes his place amongst the pile of weird hate fuck to lovers men that dean has.

Idk if any of that answers your question but hopefully so. Pls tell your friends I’m sorry for adding fuel to what will surely be a delight of a fire lmao

[novelsoverload]

City of Lost Souls Review (SPOILERS!!)

Author - Cassandra Clare

Genre - Fantasy, Young Adult Literature, Fantasy Fiction, Urban Fantasy, Horror Fiction, Adventure Fiction, and Paranormal Fiction

Dates - January 12, 2025 to January 19, 2025

Page Count - 556

Method (How I read it) - Special Edition Hard Cover Book

Tropes - Unqualified Protagonist Succeeding Above Overly Qualified Supporting Characters, Love Triangle, Unambiguously Bad Boy Guy

Part of a Series - Yes

Book 5 of 6

Ratings

Storytelling – 10/10

World Building – 10/10

Characters – 7.5/10

Romance – 2/10

Character Development – 7.5/10

Overall Rating – 9.5/10

Review Honestly, starting off strong with this one. Jace is yet again possessed, or whatever…and he is missing with Sebastian/Jonathan. I honestly feel like he is just always the one to get kidnapped….like a damsel in distress. Though having Clary be the one to always be the one to try and save him is a bit repetitive…I get that she is in love with him and they are the two bigger characters, but it feels like a lot is repeating. (Still love it though)

I HATE that Magnus and Alec were fighting most of this book. I can understand Alec’s side though. I mean Magnus is much older and that he has been with so many other people during his time, but Alec needs to get it through his head that not every single moment is needed to be known.

I am not sure how I feel about Jordan and Maia getting back together. While I think it is good for her to be able to forgive him for everything, I think it is a bit strange that they are together again. And Jordan’s fears when she is not near is strange as well. I mean there is a lot to unpack there. I mean their past is horrific but why would Maia go back? I think they work well together, I mean them going to the Praetor Lupus and getting Luke the help he needed was something and them fighting along side each other in the battle proved that they can work well together, I just don’t get why she would go back after all that history.

One of my burning questions still is WHO IS MAGNUS’S FATHER?! Like When they summoned Azazel he was going to tell us, but Magnus shut him up. I want to know!!! I mean who doesn’t! Magnus is a powerful warlock. Where does it come from? Speaking of Azazel, I am glad that they didn’t accept the deal to free him on the mortal world…that could have ended BADLY!

I guess now is the time to talk about Sebastian/Jonathan. Him thinking that Clary will trust him and want to be family is strange. I think that deep down he is telling the truth. There is a lot about Sebastian that is wrong. I mean I know he has demon blood in him and he that he thinks/calls Lilith his mother. Also the fact he wants to create a different form of shadowhunters with demon blood just makes me feel weird. Like is he trying to build a family? I mean there is a lot that is wrong with that. I can understand wanting to reform the Clave and all that, because from the sounds of it…its messed up. But doing this, is just WRONG.

The fact that the Fae is on Sebastian/Jonathan’s side makes me so mad. I get that they don’t really care about the whole human world, they are picking the wrong side morally. I think And the fact that the Queen sent Clary to Sebastian/Jonathan with the ring is just something else. I absolutely HATE the Fae Queen and I am starting to hate those in her court.

The fact that Simon even suggested summoning Raziel…and everyone WENT WITH IT!!! Izzy, Alec, and Magnus went with Simon to Luke’s farm to summon him. The fact that Simon even survived is AMAZING! Plus he got Michael’s sword, named Glorious. All in exchange for the Mark of Cain. Which in retrospect is a good thing, because now he doesn’t have the mark anymore…but he also doesn't have the protection of the mark anymore which is concerning.

Magdalena, a former Iron Sister, is going to craft the Infernal Cup out of adamas, which is the metal that the seraph blades are made of. The fact they got a chunk of it and knew someone to make it into the cup is so sad. The fact that after she made it, Jace went and KILLED her. But in doing so, she cut his mark that bound him to Sebastian/Jonathan. Which caused him to be himself. He wanted to go to the Clave, but Clary stopped him. Stupidly so.

Amatis, Luke’s sister, was the first person that was turned into this dark shadowhunter. Which is horrible, because she died in the battle because she was no longer herself. Clary ended up stabbing Jace with Glorious. Which saved him, but Sebastian/Jonathan got away.

MAGNUS AND ALEC BROKE UP!!!! I do understand Magnus’s reason. I HATE IT!!!!! I HATE IT!!!!!

The fact that Maureen killed Camille….is just WILD!!!!! Part of me hopes it was a joke or something on Alec. But I feel like it wasn’t…….

Characters Clary - Main Character (Shadowhunter) - 7.5/10 - Clary Clary Clary. Love her…but I hate her too. She is so strong-willed and so willing to throw herself into danger that she doesn’t think properly. She makes a lot of rash decisions. In a way it make her more relatable, because she is doing all this for those that she loves. I hope that she will mature more in the next book. There is a lot she can do in her life with her angelic blood and her need to protect those she loves.

Jace - Bad Boy (Shadowhunter) - 6.5/10 - Giving him a lower score this time around because of the fact that he is possessed 90% of the time. I think that yes, part of Jace pulled through, but it was more of him being controlled by Seb. I think there is a lot at the end of the book. I loved how he was with Clary in the infirmary. It gave a lot of insight to who he is more. I hope we get to see more of that in the last book….

Isabelle (Izzy) - Sexy Goddess (Shadowhunter) - 10/10 - I feel like Izzy grew a lot in this one. I think her realizing that she needed Simon to be with her and that she may have more feelings for him than she is willing to let on, is something big for her. I mean it was revealed that she only trusts her family really, and the fact that she is wanting to be with Simon and that she asked Clary about love is something. I think there is a lot more that we need to explore with her. I am hoping to see more of it in the last book.

Alec - Gay Bestie! (Shadowhunter) - 6.5/10 - The fact he went to Camille to find out how to either become immortal or to make Magnus mortal pissed me off so badly! I mean I can understand it. He wants to be with Magnus but there is a HARD line that he crossed in this book. As much as it pains me, I am glad that Magnus dumped him because of what he did. I mean I love me some Malec, I have to agree with Magnus on this. Alec was OUT OF LINE!

Simon – Vampire Bestie - 8/10 - The fact that Simon was going over to be with Clary every night made me happy. I mean yes he was (maybe always will be) in love with her, but he cares about her enough to be there for her was touching. Then he goes and drinks from Izzy. I did not like that. I understand that he is a vampire and all that but he was doing so well drinking animal blood. I think that will end up setting him back in the long run.

[newpublicfolder]

Demian, I don't understand you. I don't think I will anytime soon. I can barely understand the story, and I don't understand how people see deeper meaning. How the people see the sign of Cain and see that it could mean so much more, how do you see something I have seen for a decade and a half, from my birth, to the point I was cast aside. I stood when you said that this mark was not one of shame. This was heresy. Heresy to a religion that I didn't believe. I think that is the moment I wanted to weep. The realization that I could not be him was too great, I could never think past what I hear, what I see. I could never be greater than the average student sitting next to me. I wanted to tear my eyes away and run back to what I used to call the truth, to what I used to love but his words were sweeter than any apple that Eve could pick, more enticing than the whispers of the snake. I didn't want to think. To retreat back into the shell I call home, mindless scrolling and meaningless laughter. I never more had wanted to stop thinking.

When you stop thinking, and listen to others, the law- there is peace in that. There is a forgiving peace in ignorance. A peace that is not easily shook. The problem was that I was only half of that person. I shoved the book in my bag, and rushed home. I forgot about Demian, his words, the book. I switched thinking for pointless gibberish, my blade for a laugh. I was happy, content, but when I am alone with my thoughts like nights like these, when I shoulder my bag and feel the lump of the book, my brain is consumed once again, and I spin answerless thoughts on the spindle I call my head, over and over, again, and again.

I cried on the bus when Emil looked at his father and laughed, laughed that his father did not know him. That the almighty was in fact, not almighty. That was the thought I had about my father one day. Around what would be a similar age to him. I looked on my father in, in despise. That he would not understand the feelings festering within me. The thought that I was not a Child of their God. That I had been born to the wrong people, that they deserved better than a daughter like me. I was not alone. Emil, Emil, he understood. He had felt it, he had known! I cried internally. He talked about how there was a world of good, and also a world of evil. I clutched at my throat. 'Was this something that everybody went through? Could you finally tell me if I was just like everyone else?' I dreamed, that my parents were good, and in the world there was the same amount of evil to balance out the good. So if they could be in the heaven they longed to be, I would be the evil that needed to be. I had felt what Sinclair had felt, up to every last feeling, and I wept.

[apocalypseornaw]

Never say Never

For @make-me-imagine 5th blog anniversary event. The prompt I picked was "I can't stand the fact that I can never be with you."

Word Count: 1402

Warnings: smidge of cursing

You were laying across Dean's bed next to him watching whatever western he'd clicked on. You normally would've been paying attention to the television, your weekly movie nights were something you'd looked forward to but lately you started to wonder if it was something that meant as much to him as it did to you.

You'd known him and Sam the better part of your adult life. Hell you were twelve when you met them. Sam was the same age as you and Dean was a smart mouthed sixteen year old that thought he already knew it all until Bobby revealed you were a natural born witch being raised by your uncle who also a witch and a hunter. For years Dean avoided you at best until John went missing. He called you to go to Stanford with him in hopes Sam would be more willing to come along for the search if you were there.

The intention was to simply assist them in finding their dad then hit the road yourself. After Jess was killed Sam asked you to stick around so you started hunting with them more often. Eventually Dean started to trust you just as Sam did. You counted yourself as the first notch in Dean seeing that this life wasn't all white and black but shades of grey. Your powers came in handy at times and you fought for the boys just as hard as they fought for you.

The bond you had with Sam was unbreakable because both of you were the kids being dumped on Bobby, never feeling like you belonged. He was your best friend and you his. Dean however was a harder case to crack, yeah you were friends but the bond didn't form as strong until you ended up trapped in Purgatory with him. Nothing like a constant battle field to make you know each other inside and out. The weeks after making it back topside were the worse. The damn flashbacks drove the two of you together, there was nothing sexual but you would stay with each other wrapped up in your shared trauma offering comfort you could only find in each other.

Since then you could nearly read Dean's thoughts half the time only a glance having to be shared between the two of you. When had your feelings slipped past you into him sneaking his way into your heart? Was it when Sam nearly died from the trials? Could it have been the horror that followed his days of bearing the mark of Cain when it truly seemed like he would be lost to all of you?

Dean was impossible to not fall for. Physically he was gorgeous of course but besides that he was strong and caring and would risk his life to save someone without a second thought. He would fight with everything he had and loved with every ounce of his heart. You knew how he saw himself, a fuck up. When he looked in the mirror he saw every mistake he ever made. You'd give anything to let him see himself how you saw him.

Halfway through the movie Dean realized you weren't commenting on some of the ridiculous costumes or snatching any pizza. Hell your lemonade sat untouched. He turned his eyes away from the screen to glance over at you and realized you were curled up to his pillow laying tucked into his side.

He clicked the television off before nudging you slightly "Sweetheart, what's wrong?" You visibly startled before a soft smile slipped onto your face "Sorry Dean, guess my heads not really into this movie" "Yeah that bad of an excuse may work on Sammy but not me. I know ya better than that. You're looking worse than you did when I came back from having black eyes. Now what gives darling?"

You sat up slowly still clutching his pillow "That" he looked confused for a second "Me calling you darling?" You nodded the words slipping out before you could stop them "I can't stand the fact that I can never be with you."

His eyes widened and you felt your heart threaten to stop when you realized you'd just spilled your heart out "I'm sorry" you muttered standing to leave but damn him he was always the fastest human you knew. He grabbed you before you got to the door gently holding your wrists "Hold on now you can't say something like that then run on me"

You let him lead you back to the bed avoiding his eyes as you sat down next to him. "Can you explain what you mean?" You took a deep breath "You're Dean Winchester. The man whos saved the world more times than I can count. You're the best man I know. I'm just some witch. Hell I've almost made you be forced to kill another hunter way back when. I know you'll never see me like that and it's ok. I just hell Dean I never meant to fall for you please believe that, I would never risk our friendship"

You felt him move before his hand gripped yours gently "Look at me Darling" you slowly raised your eyes to meet his green ones "Can I talk now?" You nodded feeling your face warm from embarrassment "Are we ignoring how many times you've saved me? How many times you've saved Sam and countless others? There is no other person on this earth I trust the way I trust you. Yeah I nearly killed that asshole because he hurt you. I fell for you years ago but never wanted you to think you were just another woman to me. Besides Sam you are the most important person in my life. You're calling me the best man you know yet I'm a better man for just knowing you. I fell for you years ago but never knew how to say the words and having you in my life in any way was worth it to me"

"So what now?" You asked quietly and he smiled "Well I was thinking maybe I could kiss you then we could find a movie you wanna watch and take it from there?" "Even if it's the mummy?" You asked with a relieved laugh. "Even if it's the mummy. Now come here" He pulled you into his lap and you fell against his chest pulling a smile to his face "God you're beautiful" he whispered before brushing his lips against yours tentatively,deepening the kiss when you hooked your arms around his neck to pull him closer.

When you were forced apart by the need for air he chuckled "I'll watch the mummy a thousand times for you sweetheart"

@make-me-imagine

[sortasirius]

Dean Winchester be like:

I hate myself because it’s what my father taught me to do.  I hate myself because it’s a defense mechanism.  I use sarcasm to cover up the fact that I believe I am worthless.  I raised my brother into a good man, that’s the only good I’ve ever done.  I’ve saved some people, they don’t say thank you, but that’s okay.  I wish I could have been the man my father wanted me to be.  I break everything I touch.  All the people I love I end up killing or leaving me.  I am broken.  I don’t do romantic love, it’s asking for me to get my heart broken, more broken than it already is.  I sold my soul to a demon so I could save my brother, because he’s the best thing I ever did, the only good thing.  I’m afraid to go to Hell, but I pretend I’m not, because what’s the alternative? 

Hell proved that I was the person I always knew I was, a bad person, willing to torture to get out of pain.  I met an angel, he’s not like I thought.  He’s a soldier, like me, he’s taking orders from a father he can’t see.  He starts out as an ally, but he’s different than the others, they say he likes me.  He’s awkward, he stands too close to me sometimes.  I started the Apocalypse because I wasn’t strong enough.  My brother is going down the wrong path, and I don’t know how to stop it.  The angels tell me Lucifer has to rise, but the one that pulled me out of Hell disobeys to help me stop it.  I think I should consider him a friend.  Lucifer rises anyway. 

The angel is on the run from Heaven, he’s a good guy, I like him a lot, more than I think I should.  I don’t know what to do, if I say yes to Michael, we can save some people.  Maybe I’ll get to know peace, maybe my father will be proud of me then.  The angel and my brother are angry at me, but I’ve always been a coward, they just don’t know it.  But they know me best, I can’t say yes to Michael if it means disappointing them. 

My brother goes to the cage with Lucifer and Michael, the angel disappears, and I’m left to pick up the pieces, living a life I feel like I stole from somebody else.  I always sleep with a gun and holy water under the bed, even though I know every entrance is secure.  My brother comes back, but he’s different now, he’s not the same, I should have looked for him.  I feel guilty.  We found out his soul is gone, his soul, his soul.  The angel is back, but he’s no real help.  I kill myself to speak to Death, who brings back his soul in exchange for me playing Death, where I learn a few hard lessons. 

I find out the angel has been working with our enemies.  Why does it feel like my heart is broken when he won’t meet my eyes?  I leave him to the demons, but not before one last look.  I’m not sure why.  The idiot, he ends up dying trying to get souls from Purgatory, desperate to win his war in Heaven.  Why does everyone leave me?  The Leviathan are out there, a new threat.  At least I know how to kill, so I won’t have to think about the muddy trenchcoat in the trunk of my car.  I lose the closest thing I have to a father with a bullet to the brain.  I feel like I’m spinning out of control.  My brother loses his mind.  The angel comes back, he doesn’t recognize me, that hurts.  When he does remember me, I tell him we need him, but I really mean that I do. 

I get sent to Purgatory, I meet a vampire turned ally turned new best friend, but I won’t leave without the angel, I can’t leave without the angel.  We find him, he was running from me, why does everyone run from me?  We make it out of Purgatory, the angel gets left behind.  It turns out my brother didn’t look for me.  Why am I so dispensable?  The vampire is the only one I can trust now.  I dream about the angel, about the way I couldn’t save him.  I feel like I can’t save anyone these days.  I see the angel in the air around me, am I going crazy?  But then he shows up behind me, why do I care so much about him?  I don’t even care where he came from, as long as he’s here.  My brother takes on trials, they start to hurt him.  We find a place to call home.  I’ve never had my own bedroom before.  The angel is distant, I wish I could reach him.  He doesn’t answer my prayers.  He and I find the angel tablet, he hits me.  I tell him I need him, never able to tell him that I think I might love him too.  He snaps out of it then walks out of my life again.  I wish I was lovable.  I almost lose my brother to the trials, he has to know I can’t lose him, he’s all I’ve got.  The angels fall, I wonder about my angel, if he’s alright. 

My brother is dying, and I make a deal with an angel to save him.  My angel says he’s a good guy, and I’m too desperate to vet him properly.  I watch my angel, now a human, die in front of me, the angel in my brother saves him, it’s one of the only times I’ve ever put someone else over my brother.  I feel guilty about that.  I have to kick my angel out, it tears me in half to do it, but I have to protect my brother.  I watch the angel from a gas station window, I try to find the courage to go see him.  I use humor to hide how much I miss him.  My brother finds out about the angel, which cost the life of a kid I was supposed to protect, he’s so angry at me.  Well, I deserve it this time.  I take the Mark of Cain to defeat Abaddon, it can’t be all that bad.  I start to lose my grip on myself.  My angel gives up an army for me, and it’s the closest I feel to being me in months. My brother and my angel try to stop it, but it’s too late.  I die in my brother’s arms.

I wake up with black eyes.  I don’t care about anyone, anything.  There’s a tiny part of me that’s screaming to wake up, but I drown him out easily enough.  My brother finds me, says he wants to cure me.  I don’t want it, I don’t want to be me, not feeling is the best thing that’s ever happened to me.  They do cure me though, my brother and my angel, and waking up from the blackness is like surfacing from deep water.  For a while, I feel loved.  But after what I did, I don’t feel like I deserve it.  I’m still not me, and when my friend, who I loved like a sister is taken, I go off the deep end again. It’s too easy, but violence is all I know.  The angel tries to stop me.  I have him where I want him, a blade to the heart and this is all over.  But I still can’t kill him, I still can’t kill the angel.  Death tells me I have to kill my brother.  I almost do it.  But killing Death releases me, and I’m me again.  Sometimes I still wish I wasn’t.

I have this connection to this Darkness.  It scares the hell out of me.  I wish I understood it, I wish I could stop it.  Am I pulled towards the Darkness because I, myself, am darkness?  Is it because I am, because I’ve always been bad?  I lose the angel to Lucifer himself, how did I not notice until it was too late?  Why would he leave me like this?  Will I ever get him back?  My head is foggy around the Darkness, but not when it comes to him.  I just wish I could get through to him.  Lucifer taunts me, my heart rips in half.  We get the angel back, but nothing good can last in this life, can it?  God himself returns, I have to sacrifice myself to stop the Darkness.  I’ll do it, because of course I will, if I have an opportunity to do some good, I’ll take it.  The Darkness doesn’t kill me.  She thanks me.

My mother is alive.  It’s everything I’ve always wanted.  I have to learn fast that she’s not what I thought.  That’s hard.  Me and my brother end up in prison for trying to kill Lucifer, and we find out this girl is going to have his kid.  How will we kill someone innocent?  I can’t think about that, I’m a killer, I’ll kill if i have to.   The angel kills a reaper to save me, but what will happen to him?  We start looking for this kid, but do we even want to find it?  The angel nearly dies for me, he tells me, my family he loves us.  I wish I could tell him the same, but the words won’t work right in my brain, so I do what I always do, I look away.  The angel finds the girl, but the kid inside her gets to him, and he runs away from me.  Why does everyone run from me?  We find them just in time to find a rift to another world, and my brother has to drag me away from the angel, who is going to sacrifice himself to kill Lucifer.  He comes back, but before I can say the words I’ve been holding onto for so long, he dies in front of me, only this time, it’s real.  My mom is taken from me too, and I’m left by the angel’s side, staring up at the sky, wondering why, why me?

I bury the angel, my brother insists we can’t kill the kid, even though it’s his fault my mom is gone and the angel is...  I beg God to bring him back, please, bring him back.  You owe me this, please bring him back.  He doesn’t listen.  I’m alone.  We burn the angel, and I try to learn to live with regret and grief and crippling pain all at once.  I hate the kid, this is his fault.  I kill myself again to save some souls, but also because I want to die this time.  I can’t take it anymore.  Death tells me I have work to do, but how much more work can there be?  How much more can I take?  It’s like the Universe reads my mind, because my angel comes back, and it’s like the last few weeks haven’t happened.  I still can’t say the words, but maybe this time I’ll get there.  Maybe this time.  We go to the other world, we save some people, I find my mom.  I let another Michael from the other world possess me to defeat Lucifer, but then I can’t expel him.  Before he shuts me in my memories, I am desperately afraid.

My brother and the angel find me in my own head, the snap me out of it.  I should have known this bar was too good for me, I knew I didn’t deserve it.  I shut Michael in there, but I know I won’t last long. I think I’m too weak to hold him, so I build a box designed to hold me forever.  I dream about it, claw the sides of the wall until my nails are bloody, but if it’s my eternity or Michael’s rule?  I’ll take the ocean every time.  The angel will always try to save me, I still can’t say the words.  The kid, my kid, he destroys Michael, but something is wrong, and I don;t realize until it’s too late.  My mother is dead, at the hands of the kid, and I have never been angrier.  I hate the kid again, I hate the angel too, I hate myself more.  I pull a gun on the kid, but I still can’t pull the trigger.  Sometimes I wish I could put it to my own head.  God comes back, turns out he was the villain all along.  Typical.  He kills our kid.  I can’t let myself feel.

The angel tries to convince me that we’re real.  How can I believe that?  Is everything I am just a story?  Have I ever chosen anything?  Does the angel really care about me?  Do I really care about him?  Another one of our friends dies.  I blame the angel, I push him away, because I can’t look at him if I think what I feel for him might not be real.  I meet up with someone I loved.  He’s a monster now, I have to kill him.  He dies holding me.  I wish I was dead sometimes too.  My brother is sick, he gets kidnapped by God.  I’m spinning in circles.  Me and the angel end up in Purgatory again.  He gets taken from me.  I’m so alone, so scared, I break down in the one place I could get lost in forever searching for the angel, I don’t want to leave him, please, don’t make me leave him.  I have to keep looking, get back to the real world to save my brother.  How will I choose?  Thank god, or, whatever, I find the angel.  I’ll tell him this time, but he stops me.  He must know.  He doesn’t want me, no one wants me.  Why would they?  Chuck has taken everything from me.  I have to kill him, no matter the cost.  The cost is gonna be our kid, raised from the dead by Death.  I guess the one thing we have going for us is we don’t stay dead for long.  I’m ready to let my kid die for my freedom.  My brother stands in the way, I pull a gun on him.  He talks me down, he’s the only one that can.  I decide to take it out on Death, my pain, my anger, my rage.  I take the angel and we find her, she chases us.  Another trap.  I realize that I’ve trapped us both.  Why am I so worthless?

The angel looks at me.  He smiles.  He tells me how worthy I am, that I’m good, that I changed him.  How can I tell him how he changed me.  He tells me he’ll die for loving me.  Then he shouldn’t, I’m not worth his life.  Don’t leave me, please, I can’t lose you, you don’t know what it does it me when you leave me.  He tells me he loves me.  I try to tell him a fraction of the things I feel for him, but it’s too late.  He’s taken before my eyes, and this time I know there’s no getting him back.

I’m left on the floor, unable to move.

This time I know, I’ll never let myself love again, because my heart is so shattered that it’s powdered, there’s no repairing it now.  I’ve always been broken, but this time I’m not just broken: I’m destroyed.

[rowyn-writes]

A Mother's Love (Dean x Wife!Reader)

Warnings: Language, fluff, major angst, implications of divorce, arguing, Dean being mean to Jack

Pairings: Dean x Wife!Reader

Characters: Dean, Jack, Sam, Reader, Cas (mentioned only)

Word count: 2.7k

You threw your bag down as you entered the bunker, exhausted from your last hunt. This was one of the rare cases where you worked alone.

Sometimes you needed the time to yourself, away from all the men. Sometimes you would go hunting with Jody and Claire, but even then, those two argued like cats and dogs.

"Y/N," Jack smiled as you entered the kitchen. "How was the hunt?"

"It was pretty good, actually." You grinned as you sat across from him. "I was chasing down this werewolf in Tennessee, and it was really strange. He'd kill one person, turn the next, and repeat that cycle."

"That's. . . Weird." He furrowed his eyebrows.

"That's what I said. Well," You continued on with the story of your hunt, watching as Jack's eyes widened in amazement and awe.

"Y/N?" Dean called your name, entering the kitchen. "Hey, sweetheart. I didn't know you were home?"

You stood up, pressing a kiss to his cheek. "Sorry, babe. I got sidetracked. I was just telling Jack about my trip." You smiled, looking over at the boy. You were concerned, as the smile fell from his face and he looked away from you and Dean. "You okay, kid?"

"Yeah," He nodded, not meeting your eye. "I'll give you two some space." He mumbled as he walked out of the kitchen.

"Does he seem off to you?" You asked Dean.

"Nah, he acts like he usually does. Squirrelly and weird."

"Says the squirrel himself." You rolled your eyes. "Did something happen while I was gone?"

Dean said nothing as he looked down, an obvious indicator that he was guilty of something. "Dean," You growled lowly. "Did you say something to Jack? Something that would upset him somehow?"

When Dean didn't give you an answer, you shook your head as you follow Jack to his room.

"Jack." You called out. He seemed to be lost in thought, as he didn't react to your words. "Jack!" You said louder, causing him to turn around. There was a tiny amount of fear in his eyes. If you didn't know him, it wouldn't have affected you.

"What's wrong?" You asked softly, resting your hand on his shoulder.

"Nothing." He spoke. "Why would anything be wrong?"

"Jack, I saw how you reacted when Dean came in. You looked like a kicked puppy. Don't tell me it's nothing, kiddo."

In the time you had known Jack, you had grown to care for him deeply. You had always wanted kids, but in this life, it wasn't possible. Well, it was, but you knew you didn't want your children to do what you do. So when Jack was born, you felt extremely happy because it felt like you finally had a child. Albeit, he did look twenty.

"Dean doesn't like me very much." He admitted.

"I'm sure that's not true. . ." You argued weakly. In all honesty, you didn't think Dean liked Jack either. It's not like he was abusive, but he did treat him differently than everyone else.

"But it is, Y/N."

"How do you know, Jack? With Dean, it takes him time to warm up to people. It took him months to actually trust me. He's a cautious person."

"Did he threaten you too?" Jack asked, genuinely curious. His head was tilted to the side, his honey blonde hair falling into his eyes. He had gotten that head tilt from Cas.

"Dean. . . Threatened you?" You whispered hoarsely.

"Yes," He nodded. "He told me if I hurt you or Sam, or anyone, that he would be the one to hunt me down and kill me."

Your mouth popped open in horror. You could never imagine your sweet, loveable, goofy Dean threatening Jack. "What else did he say, Jack? Did he say anything prior to this?"

"He said that he doesn't think that I can be saved. He said that even though you and Sam think that I can, that he doesn't."

"Jack, you don't need to be saved. There is no saving to do. You are a good kid. You would never do anything to intentionally hurt anyone. I'm so sorry. I should have been there." You sigh.

"He's not wrong, Y/N. I can't be saved. What if I turn out like my father, my real father."

You frowned as you cupped his face in your hands. "Jack, you are nothing, and I mean nothing, like Lucifer. You are just like your mother. You are sweet, caring, and you are empathetic. Just like Kelly."

"You really believe that?" He whispered, tears forming in his eyes.

"No, I don't believe it, Jack. I know it. You are nothing like Lucifer. If anything, you are much more like Castiel."

"Really?" He smiled.

"Yeah," You nodded. "You see, I don't know if you know this, but Cas does this little thing where he tilts his head to the side if he doesn't understand something or if he's perplexed. And I noticed that you do the same thing." Jack's smile widened as you removed your hands from his face. "And neither of you have any knowledge of pop culture. Even though Cas was here for a lot longer than you, he never understood a single reference any of us made. Even if it was something like Scooby Doo." You giggled, feeling your throat tightening at the thought of your dead friend. "And you two state the obvious a lot. Not in a bad way, more in a comedic way. It lightens the mood nearly every time. Cas would rarely smile. When I asked him why, he would say that the world was going to hell and he didn't have anything to smile about. But when he did smile, it would make everyone else smile with him. The same goes for you. Just seeing that little toothy grin of yours makes me smile. I mean hell, you two even look a lot alike."

"Could you tell me more about him?" Jack asked.

"Of course, but I have something to take care of first. Then you and I will cuddle up and watch a movie and I'll tell you everything you want to know about Cas, okay?"

"Yeah, I'd like that." He spoke. "Before you go, could I ask you something?" You nodded. "If I were to have a mother figure, and I called her mom, do you think my mother would be upset?"

"No, sweetheart, I don't think she would be upset. I think that she would be happy that there's someone down here taking care of you and you feel comfortable enough to call them mom." You said, completely oblivious as to what Jack was suggesting.

"Then. . . Could I call you mom?"

You felt the air leave your lungs as his words hit you like a truck. Jack watched as tears welled up in your eyes. Jack was horrified; he had never meant to make you cry. "Yo-you want to call me m-mom?" You stammer.

"If you're not comfortable with it I understand. I'm sorry, Y/N, I-"

You cut him off with a tight embrace. "Of course you can call me mom." You whisper, squeezing the boy tightly.

"Why are you crying?" He questioned.

"These are happy tears, Jack. I'm not upset. It's just. . . I never thought that I would have children, but then you came along, and you gave me what I wanted. You gave me a chance to be a mother."

"Thank you for being here for me, mom."

You gave Jack a huge smile as you pulled away. "Okay," You said, putting a hand on his arm. "Now, if you'll excuse me, I have to deal with my ass of a husband."

---

"Dean Winchester," You boomed, roaming around the bunker in search for your husband.

"Ooooh, you're in trouble." You hear Sam snicker.

"But I didn't do anything. Wait, what day is it?" Dean asked frantically.

"April ninth." Sam quipped.

"Okay, no birthday, no anniversary, so there's that."

You entered The Dean Cave, as Dean called it, seeing red. "What the hell, Winchester." You growled. "Sam, out. Now."

"You don't have to tell me twice." Sam said, grabbing his bowl of popcorn and walking out of the room.

"Yes, darling, sweetheart, love of my life. What can I do for you?" Dean spoke sweetly, giving you those stupid, green doe eyes.

"Jack told me." You said simply. "He told me what you said to him. That if it comes down to killing him, that you would be the one to do it. That there was no saving him."

"Y/N, you have to understand where I'm coming from." He tried to reason with you. "You should have seen him. He was stabbing himself with a knife! And it closed up like it was nothing! It's not  normal. He's not normal."

"And?! None of us are normal, Dean. We've all died and came back to life. Sam didn't have a soul, he was hooked on demon blood, yet you were still there for him. You still believed in him. You died and became a demon, you bore the Mark of Cain and had a thing for God's friggin sister! And I still loved you through it. I have been brainwashed and manipulated into hurting all of you, and you still forgave me! Cas betrayed us, and we were still there for him. None of us are fucking normal! So what the hell, Dean? You're holding a grudge against Jack just because of who his dad is?"

"His father is Lucifer, Y/N!"

"Well that's stating the goddamn obvious!" You yelled.

"He could turn on us at any moment! We don't know this kid. We don't know what he can do."

"So we learn, Dean! We should help him figure out his way. Guide him in the right direction. Show him what a true, loving family looks like!"

"We are not his family, Y/N! And he's not our family. He never will be." Dean argued.

You flinched back, glaring at Dean. "How dare you! You son of a bitch! Whether you believe it or not, Jack is family. To me and to Sam. We care about him and love him!"

"He doesn't even know what love means!"

"Yes, he does! Because he feels things, Dean. He cares. He cares about all of us, including you. You know, he asked me if he could call me mom today. Did you know that? He trusts me and cares for me so much that he sees me as a mother figure."

"He's got you brainwashed, Y/N! Can't you see that?!"

"If he looked like his actual age, would you be acting like this?"

"What kind of question is that." He scoffed.

"If Jack looked four months old instead of twenty, would you still be treating him like this?" You asked steadily. Dean remained silent. "See! He is four months old, no matter how old he looks, he's still a baby."

"So, what, you want me to change his diaper or some shit?"

"No! I want you to treat him like a human being!" You yelled.

"But he's not human!"

You and Dean stood your ground, neither of you letting up. "Fine. I'm leaving then. And I'm taking Jack with me."

"No, you're not."

"Fucking watch me, Dean. I can't even look at you right now. Because you are not the man I married. That man was compassionate and caring. This one isn't. And until he comes back, I'm staying away." You cried.

Before Dean could get another word out, you left the den. You noticed that Sam was standing in the hallway, giving you a saddened look. "You're really leaving?"

"I'm sorry, Sam." You sobbed. "But I can't be around him right now. And I don't think Jack should be either. We're going to my parents house for a while. And until he gets his shit together, I'm not coming back.

"I know. I don't understand why Dean is acting like this." He mumbled.

"I don't either. It's so unlike him." You agreed.

"So what are you going to tell Jack?"

"Just that we're going to take a little road trip and visit my parents. I don't know, Sam, this whole thing is so strange to me. But I know have to go."

Sam frowned as he pulled you into a hug. "I'm really going to miss you. But you do what you need to do. And if you ever need anything, you call me, okay? I don't care what time of day it is, call me."

"I will." You squeeze Sam tightly. "Thank you for being an amazing brother and best friend." You pulled away, teary eyed as you parted from your brother in law. "I hope to be back soon."

You softly knocked on Jack's door before entering. "Hey, Jack." You smiled.

"Mom!" He said excitedly. "Are we going to watch movies now?"

"Actually, there's been a change of plans. Me and you are going on a road trip to visit my parents."

"Really? Are Sam and Dean coming with us?"

You swallowed hard, a lump forming in your throat. "No, actually. This is a trip just for us. Sam and Dean wanted to stay here just in case they find a case or something that can get Mary back from apocalypse world. So I'm going to help you pack and then we can get on the road."

---

You had sent Jack to your car, having him put everything in the trunk while you finished up things in the bunker. The last thing you grabbed was a machete that belonged to your father before he gave it to you.

"Don't go." A voice whispered. You turned to see Dean, who looked like he had been crying. "Please don't leave."

You swallowed hard, feeling tears rush to your eyes once more. "Will you accept Jack as family?"

"Y/N-" Dean said, exasperated. "He can stayed here but he's not family."

"That's not good enough, Dean. Because I know how you act around people you don't trust."

"You can't force me to trust him." Dean scoffed.

"That's not what I want. I want you to get to know him. I want you to try."

"Y/N. . . I just. . . I can't."

"I think. . . I think we need time apart." You mumbled.

"Y/N, please –"

"Only for a little bit." You assured him. "They say that absence makes the heart grow fonder, after all." You gave him a sad smile, trying to control your tears.

You turned to leave before Dean's voice stopped you. "If you leave, then we're over. That's it. Don't bother coming home."

You sighed as you looked back at Dean. You cupped his face in your hands and gave him a slow, sensual kiss. You could feel salty tears on your lips as you memorized how Dean's mouth felt against yours. It was warm and soft. You could taste the remnants whiskey on his breath.

You pulled away slightly, resting your forehead on Dean's. You felt tears streaming down your face as you looked the man you had grown to love over the past ten years. You had been through hell and back, literally. You had lost each other, fell out of love and back in love.

"This isn't goodbye, Dean." You whimpered. "I swear it isn't. I love you with every part of my soul. I'm not choosing Jack over you, okay? I just need time. I need you to wait for me."

"That's all I've ever done, Y/N." Dean shook his head. "I waited on you when you were in relationships, when you were heartbroken, when your sister died, I waited on you to love me back. I'm tired of waiting. I will always love you, and you'll always be with me. You've changed me, and I'm so thankful for it. You've made me a better man. But I can't. . . I can't keep doing this, Y/N." He whispered as he slipped off his wedding band. "This is goodbye." He set the ring in your hand, curling your fingers around it. "Goodbye, sweetheart." He gave you one final kiss. But this one was rough and full of passion. It really was goodbye.

"Dean, please." You cried. He pressed a swift kiss to the crown of your head before leaving you standing alone in the library. Sobs racked through your body as you clutched Dean's ring to your chest. "Please come back." You whispered.

You wiped your face of tears and stuck Dean's ring in your pocket. There would be time for tears later. Right now you just needed to get out of the bunker. As you looked around the library, you realized you had never felt this alone.

[orionsangel86]

The first Valentines Day they spent together wasn’t great. Taking out a horseman of the apocalypse and consuming an obscene amount of red meat wasn’t exactly a great start for a whirlwind romance. But Dean still remembers the butterflies he got in his stomach when Cas stood too close, or held his gaze for slightly too long.

The Valentines Day’s that came after that were mostly painful, or just another day that Dean wanted to forget:

- Handing Lisa a crumpled gas station valentines day card and a bunch of flowers that had already seen better days.

- Drowning in grief at the loss of Cas and Bobby.

- Hiding in the dark of Purgatory, trading rough hand jobs with Benny, and sending Cas tearful prayers, wishing he’d come back.

- Comforting a scared girl being chased by Hellhounds, wishing his angel would answer his prayers yet again.

- He doesn’t recall specific days whilst he had the mark of Cain.

He remembers the valentines day whilst under the pull of Amara, pining for something both frightening and unnatural, knowing deep down he was longing for something else, something that he thought he could never have.

The valentines day the year after reuniting Amara and Chuck, he had only been out of solitary confinement a few weeks, Cas was there, in the Bunker with him. But he was stubborn and angry at Cas for putting himself in danger. Dean had been giving him the silent treatment the whole time, but God, does he remember wishing Cas would come to him. Cas never did.

So much had happened in the year that followed that one. Cas had died, and returned to him, they had found Jack, and lost him to an alternate world. Even with all that had happened, Valentine Day that year was one of his favourites in recent memory. Dean had shyly invitied Cas for a movie marathon in his room. They had put on a Scooby Doo episode whilst making popcorn, and Cas had teased him for his “ascot phase” that had lasted only a few weeks. Dean still thinks he looked awesome though. They had curled up on Dean’s bed, eating popcorn and watching old horror movies. Dean had fallen asleep on Cas’s shoulder, and woke up on the morning of February 15th with his arms wrapped around Cas’s waist, and his face buried in his side. They were both smiling that morning, but neither had mentioned it again. Dean wishes they had.

The following year things had gone wrong again. Dean was too preoccupied trying to keep Michael at bay in his mind to even think about Valentines Day.

Last year on Valentines Day he was full of rage. Still hurting over all the crap that had happened. Chuck controlling their lives, being mad at Cas, Cas leaving and only returning to help the fight. He was terrified that Cas was just another part of Chuck’s story, another way to manipulate him. But Cas turned out to be one of the only things in the universe that Chuck wasn’t able to control. The one thing Dean had wanted most was the only thing that was truly real in his entire life. The thought still took his breath away. He wished he had known that at the time.

This Valentines Day, Dean was feeling high on happiness and love. Another year where too much had happened, but Dean and Cas decided that they had wasted enough time. Too many years had passed where they couldn’t be together, now they were finally free, finally able to make their own story, and they had chosen each other.

Just over three months ago Cas had confessed his love, and been ripped away from Dean once again before he had even had a chance to process what had happened. Defeating Chuck, and finally freeing themselves from his story had come at a terrible price, but luckily Dean’s adopted son was God now, and this time the deus ex machina was just what he needed.

Dean had wasted no time in finally letting his heart speak. Sobbing confessions of everlasting love into Cas’s lips, his neck, his cheeks, his chest. It had all happened pretty quickly after that. Jack had fixed everything, and Dean and Sam could finally retire.

The wedding wasn’t even their idea. Sam had blurted it out one day that they should hold some sort of ceremony as a final fuck you to all the forces of Heaven and Hell and beyond that had tried to separate them over the years. From the most powerful Gods, right down to the nasty little men in expensive suits who didn’t appreciate their love for one another. Eventually Dean had whispered the words to Cas one night, whilst they were still naked, sweaty, and wrapped around each other, gasping for breath. Marry Me just slipped off his tongue, and had got him a tearful yes and another four orgasms before the night was over.

So the valentines day “fuck you” ceremony became “Dean and Cas’s wedding day” and here they were. Exchanging vowels in front of their whole family. Even Crowley miraculously showed up which put Dean on edge for all of 10 minutes before the former King of Hell smiled and raised a fruity cocktail in his direction.

Their first dance was to “All My Love” by Led Zeppelin. Because of course it was. In the dim lights of the dance floor, pressed close to Castiel’s solid form, cheek brushing cheek, breathing in the scent of him, Dean was in the only Heaven that mattered. Right here on Earth. Real Heaven could wait until he was ready to go, which wouldn’t happen until he was old and wrinkly and his hair was grey (but still fabulous and not at all looking like a party city wig).

Once the stragglers had finally left the reception, or past out in the corner, Dean and Cas slipped away to the wedding suite, and drunkenly made love until long after midnight. It was by far, the best day of Dean’s life, let along the best Valentines Day of the past 12 years.

It’s the morning of the 15th February. Dean is lying in bed, on his back, with his new husband wrapped around him like an octopus. He thinks of all the valentines days of the past 12 years, and then forgets them, and thinks of the ones to come.

Next year he will spend the entire day in bed with his husband. Maybe he’ll get up long enough to make pancakes to bring Cas breakfast in bed. Maybe he’ll slip on some anniversary/valentines day panties. He thinks Cas may be into that.

In five years time he’ll spend their anniversary/Valentines day in their home by a beach - the one he plans to build himself. They’ll sit under the stars and listen to the ocean crash into the shore, wrapped in a huge blanket and whisper sweet nothings into each others ears.

In twenty years time, they’ll celebrate with their family. Perhaps he’ll throw Cas a party. He can picture Jack and Claire grown up with their own families, and Sam and Eileen with their own children, also grown by that point, and ready to move on to college and beyond. He sees a future full of love, and happiness, and peace. A future he has chosen for himself. A future where he is truly free to live the life he wants.

In the end, it doesn’t matter if they make anniversary/valentines day plans in the future or not, so long as they are together, so long as he gets this. So long as Cas remains in his arms. So long as he gets to kiss his husbands handsome face and see the love and happiness in his eyes. So long as from now on, nothing, not Darkness, Hell, Heaven, or even Death can separate them. After all, past experience has proven that they never succeeded before. Dean and Cas will always find their way back to each other.

[apatheticanvas91305]

Even When You Hide

Happy @starrynightdeancas​ celebration day to @firefly124​! I got really busy over the last couple of weeks, so its not as good as I wanted it to be for you, but I hope you like it anyways. (also I had to abandon my sketches and normal art style today due to technical difficulties, so the art is a bit rubbish, sorry, if i get round to finishing the other one in my normal style when i get home to my computers, I will send it your way) BUT ANYWAYS I hope you love it (the fic not the art, hides) and I think Sophie is the dopest for putting this whole thing together.

Pairing: Dean Winchester x Castiel

Tropes: Hurt/Comfort, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, First Kiss

Based: Somewhere after 10.03, when Crowley give Cas grace and Dean is cured of Demon-ness, and 10.18, when Cas gets his grace back. I did not mention the Mark of Cain though. 

Song: I See You - Missio

Word count: 2.2K

I see you when you're down And depressed, just a mess I see you when you cry When you're shy When you want to die I see you when you smile It takes a while At least you're here I see you

It had been 25 minutes since Dean had sent Cas to pick out the paint for his room. He put down all the sheets and lined the sockets and skirting boards with tape and was now sitting at the foot of the bed, tapping his foot to a silent beat.

Dean hadn’t known what to get the angel from the store so there were currently 12 pots of paint, all different colours, sitting on shelves in the garage. He chewed on the inside of his cheek absentmindedly, picturing the scrunch of Cas’ eyebrows and the tilt of Cas’ head as he scowled at the cans.

‘Dean. What does it matter if the room is winter blue or baby blue?’ Dean could almost hear him ask it - the gravel of Cas’ voice rumbled in the back of his mind. Dean shook his head, smiling, and headed to see what the hold-up was.

What he found was a mess.

“Fuck. Shit!” Pots of paint were scattered across the room. Most were broken open, stripes of paint led away from a large metal cabinet that had toppled over onto the Impala and cast the tins in all directions.

“Cas!”

Dean ran forward, holding his breath. The cabinet had smashed right through Baby’s windshield, fracture lines spanned what was left leaving chunks of glass suspended in the laminated frame. The bonnet had been completely crushed, practically folded in half, and the corners had torn into the paintwork. Dean would be seething except he couldn’t breathe. He threw his weight behind his shoulder, forcing it under the shelves and straining until black dots danced in his vision.

“Cas!” Dean collapsed, his efforts futile. “Cas! Where the hell are you?!”

And then he heard it – the quick and broken, but quiet sobs of an angel. Dean whirled around o fast his neck cracked and then he crawled, actually crawled on his hands and knees, towards the sound.

Behind the impala, Cas was perched on the balls of his feet with his trench coat pooling around him. Dean had never seen him cry before, not like this. There was a streak of paint that ran from just under his left eye to the corner of his mouth. Where his tear tracks converged with it, the drops turned blue and fell to the ground like grace. Dean watched, transfixed for a moment, before scrambling closer.

“Cas.” Dean’s voice louder than he meant it, startled Cas out of his fugue state. His hands, which had been moving, stilled instantly as he looked back at Dean with wide shiny eyes.

“I don’t want to go, Dean.” The cracks in Cas’ voice tugged at Dean’s soul. He didn’t understand.

Dean shook his head. “What?”

Cas’s eyes only grew larger as the hunter reached out, “Dean, please don’t make me go.” His arm hung in the air, terrified of doing the wrong thing. He knew Cas couldn’t fly anymore but it had never stopped feeling as though their conversations were timed, except Dean couldn’t see the numbers on the clock. He was always waiting for Cas to vanish. “I want to stay.”

Bile rose in the back of Dean’s throat and his hand dropped like dead weight between them as he realised what Cas was saying, what he was thinking. He thought back to months before. ‘You can’t stay.’ He’d said, the same bile rising in his throat as now. He looked at Cas in his human clothes, that goddamn hoodie., and watched as Cas’ heart broke. Watched as the hurt played openly on his features, defences down. And then, he’d looked away. Dean remembers looking anywhere but into his best friend’s eyes, knowing that if he did his resolve would surely crumble. Now, all he wanted was for Cas to look at him, but the angel had gone from a deer in the headlights to refusing to lift his head higher than his shoulders.

“I can fix it, I promise.” Cas’s hands started moving again. His fingers shook as he tried to slot several pieces of broken glass back together. Small cuts littered his palms, bleeding freely as Cas worked.

“Cas. Cas, why-” Dean swallowed around the lump of panic still tuck in his throat, “Why aren’t you healing? Is it the grace? Is it failing?” His hands had found there way between them again. They hovered uselessly over Cas’ own. Cas was shaking his head, but Dean wasn’t sure if it was in answer to his question.

“Cas?” Dean didn’t know what to do, until he did. Taking a shaky breath, he allowed his panic to consume him for one second more before he tabled it.

“Cas,” His voice was gentle but solid, “Cas, stop it. Please,” - Dean stilled Cas’ hands with his own. He turned them palm up and, careful not to catch any of the cuts, unfurled the angel’s trembling fingers with is thumb – “Just stop.”

Cas was still refusing to meet his eyes, but he’d stopped shaking his head. He stared down at the pieces of glass and Dean followed his gaze. He recognised them as the broken remains of a small glass statue of an angel. Sammy had presented the thing to a few years ago after he’d nabbed it from some rogue crossroad demon’s second-hand shop to bully Dean with. ‘A guardian angel to save me from your moping when Cas is away,’ Sam had said, and Dean had shoved it deep down inside Baby’s trunk. That was until they moved into the bunker and Dean had felt some strange compulsion to place the glass angel atop the recently toppled shelves. Cas had been there, tilting his head at him. ‘Present from Sam,’ He’d practically growled before running away.

“Hey,” One of Dean’s hands left Cas’ in favour of poking him gently in the cheek. Cas jerked backwards slightly, finally meeting Dean’s eyes. He was still crying but less so. Dean nodded, “I need you to listen to me. You. Are. Not. Going. Anywhere. Ever. Again.” He waved his free hand at the mess around him. “All this, none of it matters,” Dean moved his other thumb in circles, steeling himself. This moment is what all his years watching chick flicks in secrecy had been preparing him for. “You, Cas, are what matters. To me.”

Dean held his breath for one, two, three seconds. Cas hiccoughed, blinking one, two, three times as the last of his tears fell from his cheeks.

“Why aren’t you healing?” Dean whispered into the space between them, a little afraid of anything louder.

“I didn’t want to waste m…” Cas looked lost, “It.” Dean waited.

“When Metatron took my grace from me, he left me human. Except I’m not human. Jimmy though, Jimmy was human, fragile. Without my powers, I’m,” Cas struggled with his words, he looked away. “I’m a baby in a trench coat.” Fuck. “I am nothing. And I can’t go back to that. I can’t keep steeling my kin’s grace from them, reducing them as I have been reduced. I can’t.” He dropped his head to his chest once more. “But I also don’t want to die.

“Castiel.” Dean swerved back into Cas’ eyeline as he spoke, “You are not nothing,” Cas stared at him, not believing.

“You are not human. You’re not Jimmy. But you’re not your grace either.” Dean was going to make him understand how wrong he’d been sitting in Eve’s diner. “You’re not your vessel and you’re not your powers. When I look at you-” The hunter swallowed, “When I look at you, I just see… you. I see you, Cas.”

He looked down at their hands, feeling dizzy. He couldn’t believe how mushy he was being or how much he didn’t mind. He felt like Colin Firth. “As for the rest of it, we’ll figure it out. We always do. The grace situation… Well,” Dean smiled, small. “We’ll make it up as we go.” Dean lifted Cas’s hands to his lips and pressed a kiss into a single cut. After a moment, grace began to shine beneath the skin and the wounds pulled themselves closed.  Beaming now, he leant back and ran his thumb over the soft new skin, turning their hands so their finger interlocked.

“Dean, I-”

“I made a mistake,” Dean interrupted, “I have made so many mistakes. But, kicking you out like has to be one of the worst. No explanation, no assistance, no nothing. It’s the wrongest I’ve ever been in my life. Gadreel gave me an ultimatum but that’s not an excuse. Doesn’t even come close to justifying what I did. I should’ve told you what was going on. Maybe if I had tried, for even a second, to communicate, we could have avoided a lot of pain. I should’ve – I should’ve done a lot. But I didn’t, and that wasn’t good enough.’

“Dean, it’s okay.”

“No, no it’s not.” Dean broke eye contact then.

“Okay, well” Cas squeezed his hands, “I forgive you then. How’s that?”

Dean huffed out half a laugh. His next words caught in throat as he looked back at Cas. He was so close to him. Dean supposed he always was. Dean’s eyes caught on Cas’ mouth where he had worried at his bottom lip. It was red and sore and wasn’t healing. Before Dean knew what he was doing, he was tipping forward, eye slipping shut. When they met in the middle, he barely felt it. He touched his lips to Cas’ like he had to his hands, his heart pounding against the inside of his ribcage. Dean didn’t realise he hadn’t been breathing until Cas’s lips moved against his own and he gasped for air. He leant against Cas’s forehead breathing far too heavily for such a chaste moment. They sat there just breathing in each other’s air for one, two, three seconds. Then Dean surged forwards, pushing of his feet so he was kneeling up over Cas. He dropped the angel’s hands in favour of holding his head in his own, pressing desperate kiss after desperate kiss to Cas’s mouth. Cas leant backwards under him as they kissed, moulding to fit the curve of his body. His dropped hands had twisted their way into Dean’s flannel, pulling him closer.

As Dean’s lungs screamed for breath, he pulled slowly away. Cas’ head dropped to rest against his sternum and Dean allowed himself to bury his face in his hair. His hands had settled at the base of Cas’ neck and began tracing nonsensical patterns into the skin there.

“C’mon,” He leant back and pulled Cas with him. Leading him by hand past the impala and a few scattered paint cans. He stopped by one - one of the only ones not broken open - and leant down to pick it up. ‘Dusty Cyan’. Perfect. He tucked it under his arm, and flashed Cas a smile.

I'm alone with you You're alone with me What a mess you've made of everything

I'm alone with you You're alone with me And I'm hoping that you will see yourself Like I see you

The next day found them huddled close together leaning over Baby as Dean taught Castiel how to hammer dents out metal without causing more damage and replace a windshield.

“D’you want to know something?” Dean cracked open his beer. Cas hummed from where he was bent over working a dent out of the open bonnet. He was wearing one of Dean’s ratty old Bon Jovi shirts, damp with sweat and motor oil and chewing on his lip distractedly – and distractingly. “Sammy got me that angel to tease me about you.”

Cas looked up then, “About me?”

“Yeah.” The hunter coughed, wondering what had possessed him to open his mouth and start yet another chick flick. Maybe he should be worried about how much of a sap he was becoming. It was Cas’ fault, obviously. “Cuz I always complain when you’re gone.”

Cas turned around and leant back on Baby, his shoulder brushed Dean’s. “You may want to begin coming up with some alternate topics of conversation.”

Dean laughed, “You think so?”

“I have been reliably informed that I’m not going anywhere.” Cas looked at him. “Ever. Again.”

Dean shoved his shoulder, smiling wide when Cas shoved back pressing him back into the Impala’s frame and leaning into his space.

“It’s why I put it up there in the first place instead of shoving in the back of some cupboard.” He poked Cas in the ribs. “Because it reminded me of you.”

“Me.” Cas echoed.

“You,” Dean smirked, “Dumbass.”

Cas growled and silenced him with a kiss for the ages. Dean let himself be taken over by the angel, surrendering the kiss to him and just basking in the feeling of Cas pressed up against him. He didn’t need some glass statue, he already had his guardian angel exactly where he wanted him, and he had proved to be far from fragile.

I see you in the dark At the dawn of something new I see you

[spookyboywhump]

So technically, this is a follow up to This Piece, and since we were talking about Zander caretaking Cain the other day,,,,, yeah. I didn’t want to write the actual punishment part so instead it’s mostly aftermath. This takes place several years in the past so Zander would be 18 here and Cain would be 20.

CW: Implied child abuse, whipping, mentions of blood, Charles Whitaker deserves his own warning

***

Zander stared at the scene before him, so confused he almost felt numb to the situation. Cain was kneeling a few feet away from him, hunched over and trembling. His back was to Zander and as much as he wanted to look away he just couldn’t.

His back was covered in long, bleeding lash marks from a whip, fifteen of them to be exact. From the corner of his eye he could see Cain’s father putting the whip he’d used away. The fresh injuries weren’t the only thing though, there were scars, so many of them that were obviously from the same injuries in the past. Zander felt sick with guilt though, all of this was because Cain gave him food, all of this was his fault.

Cain’s father ordered him to “do something about that mutt” before he left the room, leaving the two young men alone. They were silent for a long time, though Zander could hear the cries Cain tried to muffle with his hand. After a while he realized he wasn’t going to get up on his own, and finally, Zander got to his feet, shaking as he approached him.

“Hey… hey, you’re bleeding a lot, you… you need help…” He said hesitantly.

“Fuck off!” Cain hissed, glaring at him through the tears in his eyes. For once Zander tried not to get irritated.

“Now isn’t a time for you to be stubborn, you need to get this taken care of.” He said, reaching for him to help him up but Cain violently jerked away from him.

“Don’t touch me!” He snapped. “Don’t… don’t touch me…” He said again, struggling to get to his feet. He was swaying though, he was visibly dizzy and unsteady, and Zander had to catch him before he collapsed. Cain didn’t have the strength to pull away this time, and knowing he really didn’t have any other choice, Zander went ahead and picked him up, ignoring the fact he’d get blood on him as he carried him back to his cell, the door had been left open. He would’ve taken him to his own room but he didn’t know if that would cause him more pain and he knew his room already had the supplies he needed.

He carefully sat him down in the bathroom and Cain ended up on his knees again, staying silent while Zander got ready to clean the blood off his back. He tensed up when Zander first touched him, almost as if expecting to be hurt again. He stayed that way the entire time Zander wiped away the blood, it was odd behavior he’d never seen from Cain but at the same time, he couldn’t blame him at all for the way he was acting. He didn’t even know what to say to him so he kept his mouth shut for now. Once the blood was cleaned up he started on disinfecting the wounds, but the second he touched him Cain jerked away again, whipping around to face him.

“What the fuck- that fucking hurts!” He snapped.

“If it stings that means it’s working.” He said bluntly, grabbing him by the shoulder and forcing him to turn around again.

“This is fucking ridiculous, I can’t believe my fucking dog has to take care of me…” He muttered angrily.

“Would you rather be doing this yourself?” He asked, and Cain fell silent again, allowing Zander to continue to work. “I’m… I’m sorry this happened… I should’ve stopped him.”

“There’s nothing you could’ve done.” Cain shrugged. “You would’ve only gotten the both of us whipped, and then we’d both be fucked.”

“Still… I don’t know, I’m just… I’m sorry…”

“Stop saying that. I don’t need to hear it from you and it doesn’t matter, it’s not as if it’s the first time he’s done it.”

“That’s horrible…” He murmured, a scowl on his face just thinking about it. “That fucking bastard… I just- I can’t believe he’d do this to you, ever, much less before.”

“You’re being far too generous to my father if you genuinely believe he’s ever been above that.” Cain snickered. “He’s not known to be merciful or have, you know, morals.”

“I know, I know.” He muttered. “He’s a fucking monster, that’s what he is.”

“You’re not wrong about that.” Cain sighed. He cooperated with Zander so he was able to bandage him up, finally finished with everything. He cleaned up while Cain sat there, silent for a long time before he very softly said, “I don’t want to go…” Zander considered reminding him that it’s not like he could make him leave, Cain could do whatever he wanted, he’d never considered Zander’s opinion before, but at the same time it almost hurt to see how sad and dejected he looked.

“You don’t have to…” He told him. He stayed on the floor with him, sitting silently as he waited to see if Cain even wanted to talk. Cain kept his knees pulled up to his chest, wrapping his arms around them. He would occasionally sniffle or reach up to wipe away a tear. Zander had never seen him cry before now, and he didn’t feel any sense of vindication like he always thought he would. Cain was horrible, but this situation was more horrible, his father was more horrible. He’d seen him hit Cain before, sure, but he truly never thought he’d torture him.

He didn’t think it was possible, but he was finally realizing Charles Whitaker was far more evil than he’d initially thought.

[spiders-hth-is-an-outlier]

Honestly the Supernatural ending was fucked all along, because to have a strong ending, a work has to resolve whatever tensions and questions it set up in the opening – not necessarily in an uncomplicated way, but it has to offer a kind of answer to the fundamental story questions.

The premise set up in The Woman in White is: Sam has a good life, Sam is an up-and-coming guy on his way to happiness and success, but Sam's father is not doing well; Sam is angry at his father, who he remembers as, at best, a habitual drunkard who kept Sam's life in chaos and then disowned him.  So question number one is, given that Sam is better and happier now that he's no longer entangled with his father, should he revisit any of that?  Does he continue to owe his father anything, should he help look for him, should he even care at all that his father might be in trouble?  That feels like a clear no, not really, let John solve his own problems – until Jessica dies in the same way Mary did, and that introduces a twist.  Has Sam actually misunderstood who his father was?  Does John know, has John all along known something that Sam needs to know about his own past, that he can't live his happy life until he understands?  The search for John is now about not just “does Sam owe his family anything?” – it's about “does Sam need his family?”  And there's a plot resonance, but also a thematic resonance there: do you need your family?  Even if your family's pretty fucked up?  Does going back to your unhappy childhood serve some necessary function on your road to a successful adulthood?  Can you pretend forever that you don't come from the fucked-up place you come from, or do you actually have to go back and understand the truth about who your parents were because the past is never just the past?  

So the early seasons are largely about answering that question, through the vehicles of Sam, who would prefer not to admit that his fucked-up past can't really be run away from, and Dean, who would prefer not to admit that there was anything fucked-up about his past at all.  Both of them learn and change: Sam begins to understand where he really comes from and why he can't separate himself from the forces that made him, and Dean begins to understand that yeah, actually, he should separate himself a lot more from the forces that made him, that it's foolish to hold up his father as some kind of infallible god, because even God isn't that. All the stories that spin out in the early seasons about Earth as the cosmic battleground for the family strife between Michael and Lucifer are linked to the pilot by that question: is there any escaping the reach of your family and its history?  And the show decides, yeah, we have free will, we shouldn't just lie down and die because that's our inheritance.  We should change the script.  We can be better than our parents were.  Better than we were ordered or prophesied to be.  And the clear mechanism for all of this is love: Sam falls to Lucifer's influence when he's rejected again (Dean following in John's footsteps), but Sam is able to shake off that demonic control long enough to thwart Lucifer because Dean loves him and accepts him and remains with him when it looks like it's too late to save him (the thing John never did, couldn't do).  Dean changes the script by being more able to love Sam unconditionally than John could, and the basic question of the premise is answered: you do have to go back to your family – not to accept or replicate their mistakes, but to do better, to love them better this time.  You have to heal from the root.  As a viewer, you can accept or reject this resolution; I personally like it, but I'm from that same cultural background, I have a family history that vibes with the things the show is discussing, I'm primed to like and agree with the conclusion.  Maybe you're not, and that's okay!  The point is, it is a conclusion to something.  The show asked questions and then provided answers.

The problem is...the show answered its own questions in 5 seasons, and in such a way that the naturally satisfying conclusion was – literally anything else except more hunting.  You can't say the Big Answer is loving and forgiving your family in spite of their flaws, and then also say that what you want to do with your life is The Family Business just as your father practiced it.  Once you say that the prescription is to heal at the root, something should change.  And it doesn't, really, because the show can't change.  It has a formula.  It's about hunting.  Dean can't give up violence and become a family man, even though that's been clearly established as something he'd be better and happier doing.  Sam can't pursue any dreams that weren't the dreams his father had for him, even though that's been clearly established as the thing he's been willing to fight for all along.  So if the show isn't going to be over, they both have to actively choose to go against their own self-interest. And season 6 is pretty clever, actually – soulless!Sam is a device that does get them back on the road in a way that makes sense; we know why Sam isn't doing what's right for Sam, and we know that Dean can be convinced to do what's wrong for him in order to save Sam.  It tracks.  But it can't last, and what takes over pretty soon from there is...inertia, basically. They keep doing this because this is what they do.  It doesn't really make them happy.  It just feels necessary, because Hunters is what they are; no Hunters retire, in the whole show.  They are never allowed.  It is not done.  They may lapse into more of a part-time gig, but nobody actually leaves the business, because it would be – bad.  People would die, we guess?  A hero never would, we guess? It's not terribly clear, but the general sense is that it just has to happen this way because this is their story now.  This is who they are.

And that's the opposite of what the initial story was about.  Now the story about using your free will to transform and redeem the dysfunctions you inherited is a story about two guys just working in the family business while they die inside of loneliness and PTSD.  There's no story question in the later seasons; there's just stimulus and response.  Oops, Leviathans.  Oops, Mark of Cain.  Oops, Amara.  Oops, Lucifer and Lucifer and more Lucifer. Oops, Michael again.  We better deal with that, I guess.  Some of the storylines are okay in later seasons; some individual episodes are fantastic.  But the whole thing is mired in the fact that there can't be forward momentum in the story because there are opponents and antagonists galore, but there's no internal engine to the story, no fundamental problem to conquer or question to resolve.  From outside the story, we can sit here and say, Hey, it's a problem for me that these dudes are fucking miserable, I'd like them to work on resolving that!  But within the story, they're never allowed to admit that is a problem.  Because it's an adventure show about brave guys doing good deeds, and it's undermined at the most basic level if we come out and admit that what would make these dudes less miserable is no more fucking adventures, no more martyring themselves to do good deeds, no more hunting at all.

When the show came to an end, it was epically fucked, because it had nothing to resolve.  And to give the show credit, it did try to do something interesting that would refer back to and provide a commentary on the whole show – this meta business about “have we all been God's favorite tv show all along?” There's something there; it reminds me of the CS Lewis quote about how he never worried that God didn't exist, but he did often fear that God was actually a vivisectionist.  What if the reason this show has been churning along in place forever in spite of the characters' vivid and unchanging dissatisfaction with their life is that some other force wanted them to keep going on adventures?  Maybe it's God, who's a writer (that's ground we've gone over before), but not just a writer – he's his only fan, his only audience.  He's the Fandom. He's the Audience.  He's us.  Sam and Dean have been on this hamster wheel of labor and loss with no endpoint in sight because that's what we tune in to see; if they both quit, we change the channel.  We're the ones who demand they Always Keep Fighting, who call them heroes for suffering through this endless parade of baddies and funerals.  I mean, that's pretty good, as a way to retcon the complete pointlessness of the last ten years!  The point is: it was fun to watch.  We liked the characters and the episodes and we wanted them to keep doing that for our entertainment, even though we knew it wasn't any fun for them.  It's basically the network tv version of Cabin In the Woods, and there's a – I would say mildly interesting question to raise there about what's drama, what's catharsis, what do we get out of stories about other people's suffering and other people's heroism?  In my opinion it's a mildly interesting route to open up, although I don't know that there's enough meat on the bone to really make it pay off.  An effort was clearly made, though!

But to follow that through to its conclusion, you'd have to answer it, and the way it's set up, there is no satisfying answer possible from inside the universe.  We can answer what we get out of stories, perhaps.  But why would that be of any interest or comfort to the people in the stories?  Their story can't resolve for Sam and Dean if we learn it was actually a story about us the whole time.

So what do you do to end that story? Well, you're a little bit stuck.  You can have them resign or get free somehow, sure, and the show does that.  But what then?  You have two choices, really: either we loop back to s6 and they keep being hunters because It's a Show About Two Hunters – only this time they have True Free Will so you have to assert that they're really freely choosing it, and you have to somehow justify that they would really freely choose to keep doing this thing that's never made them happy, which is depressing as shit – or you have them quit and go pursue their own lives and their own desires – which pretty much goes ahead and admits that the last ten seasons have been us the audience benefitting from the Winchesters' unwilling participation in this Saw-like theme park that was set up for our entertainment (via our stand-in, Chuck).  That's clearly the bolder option, but it's also like – super fucked up!  And it denies both the audience and, more critically, the people who make the show from having any real victory lap,  any way to present the show as a completed entity and say “here's a great story that we're proud of and excited about.” It's such a bleak corner that the show has painted itself into at that point – all of this only happened against our heroes' will, but enjoy it anyway!  Of course that got pushback.  Of course people wanted to end with something that portrayed the characters as the drivers of the show, protagonists whose choices mattered, whose lives mattered.  But they weren't, and they didn't.  That was the premise the writers went with in season 15, because they needed to do something about the fact that nowhere in the past ten seasons had the Winchesters done anything on their own behalf, because they'd never been given story goals.  All they'd been allowed to do is play whack-a-mole with monsters.

It's a mess all the way around, and it's almost impossible to resolve this late in the game.  Season 15 couldn't be about the Winchesters resolving any real Stuff, because the show had long since realized that its prime directive was making sure that the fundamental pattern of the show remained intact: the boys go on adventures, bad things happen somewhere and the boys show up to stop it.  And if that fundamental pattern is not a problem – if we're supposed to be glad it's there – then you can't allow any storylines that would end in changing it.  Everything that's introduced has to be resolvable by a reversion to that vision of What We Do Around Here, so we can keep doing it.  The legitimacy of What We Do Around Here is never allowed to be in question, and an attempt to question it at the very end of the series winds up inherently muddled and out-of-place.  Third-act problems are always first-act problems, and the problem with the finale is that the show had spent so long actively reifying the value of an endless, unchanging sequence of events and actively working to quash anything that started looking like a linear story that would end in a place other than where it began.

I like a lot of the plotlines and episodes and characters in the later season.  Honestly, 12 is probably my favorite season, just on the weight of good episodes I enjoy watching.  But the only part of Supernatural that ever had a coherent story at the heart of it was the original five seasons, where things were set up, explored, and resolved in Swan Song with admirable narrative focus and direction.  Everything after that was just stuff that happened, which is not what a story is, and you can't come back from that in the series finale and somehow make it work.

[sofreddie]

Friday Feature: July 16, 2021

Welcome to the Friday Feature, where every Friday I feature a different Fanfic Writer’s blog. This week’s Feature Blog is:

Link to Masterlist

About the Author:

Hello everyone! My name is Mert and I go by superfanficnatural on Tumblr. I started out writing right about when quarantine began and while I’ve been mostly on and off for a few months, I still love everyone that I have met on this amazing site! I write both male and female reader since I feel comfortable writing both and I write for a multitude of fandoms (just haven’t been able to post any other fandom than SPN aside from a few one shots). Spanning from random video game characters, to real people, to fictional characters, you can see my thirst goes far and wide haha.

I love it when people who read my stuff or even just people I haven’t interacted with send me a message so I can meet new people so please, don’t be shy and reach out!

Author’s Fave Personal Fics:

The Boy/Girl Who Cried Wolf

Summary: A wolf hunt gone wrong results in an investigation. When things begin to not add up, will you be the girl/boy who cried wolf?

Why the author likes this fic:

This fic is actually my all time favorite from what I have written and if you ask my friends I constantly say I don’t like my writing so this should stand out lol. I spent hours carefully crafting this fic and I really wanted a psychological thriller. It’s one of my favorite genres and I always love to be thrown off by plot twists and the like so if you’re the same, I hope you’ll enjoy this fic! This is a gender neutral fic so anyone can enjoy!

You Say

Summary: Based on the song, You Say by Lauren Daigle

Why the author likes this fic:

This fic was either my second or third attempt at angst so it will always hold a place close to my heart. Based off of the reactions that it got as well, it’s helped me realize that it’s actually pretty angsty! This is a female reader for those of you who would either like or dislike that. (Still kinda want to go back and rewrite it though *cough* Brandy *cough*)

Out in the Open

Summary: You always loved to tease Steve Rogers, always messing around with him and just having fun. Little did you know, he was going to pay you back for all of the embarrassment in full.

Why the author likes this fic:

This was actually my first attempt at both the Marvel fandom and for Steve Rogers so I was really nervous posting this. It is now my most popular story and I’ve come to appreciate it as well. It’s filled to the brim with smut and I already have people killing me asking me for a second one (which I am writing, promise!!). This is a male reader for those of you who would either like or dislike that.

Author’s Fic Recommendations:

Contagious by @datfandombitch

Summary: In the first step to take down Abaddon, Dean needs to get the Mark of Cain. This proves to be a longer process than anticipated.

Why the author likes this fic:

I think this was one of the first fics that ever made me so h word that I couldn’t function for like a week afterwards. No like seriously, I go back and read this at least once a month, READ.IT.

Life For Rent by @winchest09

Summary: Y/N can be anyone for a price. Her life is ruled by contracts, men and money. It’s all she knows; countless identities, seedy clients, and strict regulations. She has to obey the rules, but her past is full of secrets and her future is resting in the wrong hands. But will her next client be the same as the rest?

Why the author likes this fic:

This was probably one of the first series I was ever REALLY into. And I mean really like I had caps lock on for 90% of my reblogs of this and I binged most of it in like a day. Go read this right now because it is unFAIRLY good. It’s a mobster Dean fic so if any of you say you won’t like it, you’re lying to yourselves.

Underworld’s Trilogy by @flamencodiva

Summary: Follow the story of Y/N Y/L/N, or Illiara as she is known in the worlds of the Greek Gods, and her adventures with the Winchesters.

Why the author likes this fic:

So this series currently has the first installment out, the second one pending since she is rewriting all of it. I think that this is my all time favorite series that I have ever read in my life. I am a fantasy geek and this just checks all the damn boxes. I was once asked if I could ever live out a fic or series I’ve read and I said this one with 0 hesitation. It’s so freaking good and I can’t even explain it’s perfection just please go read it right now if you haven’t already.

The Midnight Ride by @alleiradayne

Summary: Long is our list of ghost stories laid to rest. But when the dark rider returns thirty years after his exorcism at the hands of the Winchesters, Sam, Dean, and I are faced with the possibility that we’ve been wrong about one thing.

Why the author likes this fic:

This was the first thing that I had ever read by Alleira and it completely blew me away. It’s like poetry how scarily good she is with her words. Her descriptions, word choice, and just everything is absolutely amazing. I highly recommend this fic to anyone who enjoys a sophisticated read because I loved it with all of my heart.

Damon F*cking Salvatore by @downanddirtydean

Summary: Damon shows you what happens when you act like a little spoiled brat.

Why the author likes this fic:

Any kind of smut that Lydia writes always has me climbing the damn walls. There have been multiple instances where I have handed Lydia my smut card so she can just write it for me because it’s seriously ridiculous. This is a Damon Salvatore smut fic for any of you who enjoy his character, and just... don’t read this around anyone because you will die in a pool of sweat.

Thank you for checking out this week’s Friday Feature. Be sure to check out Mert’s blog, follow, send asks, go crazy! Check out all the fics linked and be sure to REBLOG and COMMENT!

Authors love to know what you think about their work - not just praise, but constructive criticism as well.

Constructive criticism is a helpful way of giving feedback that provides specific, actionable suggestions. Rather than providing general advice, constructive criticism gives specific recommendations on how to make positive improvements. Constructive criticism is clear, to the point and easy to put into action.

Shout out to @talesmaniac89 for the beautiful dividers she created and offered up for us for free! Check out her other resources here.

Would you like your blog to be showcased in a Feature Friday?

Maybe you have a fic you’ve written that you’d like to be included in the weekly Fic Recommendations?

Something you’ve read and loved?

Tag me! Send an ask! Drop a DM!

And as always, Happy Fanfic-ing!

Want even MORE? Check out the Friday Feature Masterlist!

Forevers:

@sis-tafics

@lyarr24

@calaofnoldor

@hobby27

@spnbaby-67

@fangirlxwritesx67

@jarpad24

@flamencodiva

@flashxspn

@donnaintx

FRIDAY FEATURE:

@deanwanddamons

@itmighthavebeenintentional

@there-must-be-a-lock

[spencereliotwinchester]

The House That Built Me - Repost

Title: The House That Built Me

Author:  Kat

Reader Gender:  N/A

Word Count: ~1k

Summary: This happens between 10.22 and 10.23 when Dean disappears for a bit

Warnings: ANGST

A/N:  Based on the song The House That Built Me by Miranda Lambert <3 Reposting cause I think my tags didn't work

Character: Dean Winchester

–

Tags:

@mysaintsasinner @blacktithe7 @torn-and-frayed @the-jette @supernatural-jackles @iwantthedean @mrswhozeewhatsis @kittenofdoomage @bringmesomepie56 @thing-you-do-with-that-thing @impala-dreamer

–

Dean stared at the house from inside the impala. His gaze then lowered to his lap. He thought of the photo he had on his desk at home of Mary and him. That tree was still there, bigger, older and creakier than ever. The house was a light blue now and the mailbox read FRITZCH instead of WINCHESTER.

Jenny had moved from the house shortly after the Winchester’s had saved her family. According to records, the Fritzch family moved in a year later and renovated the house. Dean pondered what the Fritzch’s might have done with the house. How it had changed. He’d sworn never to come back here, yet he stared at the house where he grew up.

Dean got out of the car, a surge of courage propelled him to the porch. Before he could think, his fist rapped twice on the door. Dean looked down and saw the family had left the original cement porch when they renovated. Two tiny handprints were stuck in the cement, a moment frozen in time so long ago.

A woman answered the door, hesitantly cracking it so only part of her face was visible. She had honey colored hair that was pulled back in a long plait and chocolate brown eyes that showed confusion and distrust. Dean tried to give her a friendly smile, but it came across his face pained and hurt.

“Who are you?” She asked, opening the door slightly more so he could see her heart shaped face. .

“Ma’am, I know you don’t know me from here in Lawrence, but-” he wasn’t sure what to say next and he faltered. I lived here until a demon burned my mother, home and life to the ground? His eyes fell on the porch again, then he raised them back to meet hers. “These handprints on the front steps are mine.”

Her eyes flicked from him to the porch and back again. More words spilled from Dean’s mouth.

“Up those stairs,” he pointed behind the woman, “in that little back bedroom, is where I had my Legos and I played with my toy cars. I bet you didn’t know, under that live Oak, my favorite dog is buried in the yard.”

Dean had no idea why he shared that much information with her. She was staring at him and he willed away the heat that was climbing his neck into his cheeks. He absentmindedly ran his hand along the trim near the door jamb. He was so stupid to think that coming here would fix everything, would heal him, or fill the emptiness he felt.

He expected the woman to slam the door in his face. Any sane person would, but she remained half-hidden by the door. He met her eyes; they had softened to a look of concern. Dean realized that he was staring at her through watery tears. He tried to wipe them away, but a tear slipped out and he felt the wetness streak his cheek.

“If I could just come in, I swear I’ll leave,” Dean pleaded, against his better judgement. His voice was thick and deep. “Won’t take nothin’ but a memory.”

She opened the door wide enough for him to slip inside. Dean was put back into his childhood as he looked around him. Blurry memories of running around with his dad and his mother leading him up the stairs to bed. A barking dog at the door when John came home from work. The woman beckoned him to the kitchen. Dean stared around. The appliances and furniture were new and modern, but the arrangement was the same. Dean remembered sitting at the table, eating apple pie, while his mother cooked and cleaned.

“So, you grew up here?” The woman asked, shaking Dean back to the present. She opened the refrigerator and offered him a can of Coca-Cola. He took it and nodded.

“Till I was four,” Dean said, swallowing hard.

“I’m surprised you remember that long ago,” she sounded quite surprised.

Dean wasn’t sure how to respond. To keep himself busy, he cracked open the can and took a sip.

“It’s the only home I’ve ever known,” Dean murmured, sipping again. “Unless you count a car.”

Dean swallowed hard and took another drink of the pop. He felt like a stranger in this home; he had hoped he would feel at home, but he didn’t. He felt awkward and out of place. What had he expected from doing this, he wasn’t sure now.

“I’m sorry for bothering you,” Dean said suddenly, putting the Coke down on the counter. “I shouldn’t have- I should go.”

Dean pulled himself together and headed towards the front door. Kill. Rip. Tear… The thought ran through his mind. He shook his head and tried to push the thought from his mind. His arm burned and another thought crossed his mind. One he didn’t think,

Let me bask in blood again. Let me rip her, consume her.

“Hey, it’s okay,” the woman stood in front of him, stopping him from reaching the front door. She smelled of vanilla and fresh cotton. “I get it. You just wanted to see the place again, right? Remember home?”

“I- I don’t know. I-”

The taste of damp iron

“I swore I’d never come back-”

Pooling in my mouth

“I thought if I came back,”

Kill, Rip, Tear! The thought grew loud in his head. He couldn’t fight the Mark much longer.

“the brokenness inside me might start healing,”

Give me blood!

“I thought that maybe I could find myself.”

Feel the blood drip down your chin!

“Are you okay? You’re white as a sheet,” She touched his arm. His right arm, just below the crook of the elbow.

“I was wrong,” Dean choked out.

He extracted himself from the woman and fled from his childhood home. He jumped in the impala, started it and tore off north, away from the innocent life the Mark of Cain wanted to take. His cell phone started ringing - it was Rudy. A case of vampires in Superior, Nebraska.